


Coming of Ages

by clarityhiding



Series: The Storybook Hour [7]
Category: Bandom, Doctor Who, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Accidental Child Death, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Crossover, Gen, Minor Character Death, Stealth Crossover, but it's more like a quick summary/reference than an integral part of the fic this time, it's gen but Joe ships the Bob/Joe hard, mention of alien parthenogenesis, vague references to the mpreg that happened in the previous fic in this series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 05:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13093389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: Anecdotes of anamnesis.Aliens living on Earth is nothing new. Joe cottoned on when his next-door neighbors didn't act quite right, Pete learned when one landed in his backyard, Frank's childhood babysitter took him on interesting field trips, Bob supposes it was just a matter of time after those Vegas kids, and Patrick. Well. Patrick's always known.Or: The fic where FOB deals with aliens, Bob is basically a vampire slayer, and Frank talks to animals.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Minor character/accidental child death happens in the first scene; a toddler drowns. Other violence is pretty much canon-typical for _Doctor Who_ ; nearly all of it is either committed by Bob against various vampiric aliens, or by said aliens against their victims.
> 
> I'd like to thank Belinda, Megen, and Mads for beta-ing this at various points in time. It's been a few (several) years since any of you have even looked at it, but I'm still immensely grateful for all your help and hand-holding. Any remaining errors are my own; please, please, _please_ point them out to me since this fic hasn't seen the touch of a beta since 2011.
> 
> This wasn't actually written with chapters in mind, I just broke it up like that because it's so danged long and that's how I roll these days.

Letting the child die is never her intention, and she does as much as she's able to prevent it from happening. Any other time, as much as she's able is more than enough. As it happens, however, today—the day she stumbles upon a half-unconscious one-year-old human child struggling in the murky waters of the swamp, uselessly trying to escape—is also the day after she made the mistake of eating some really bad lobster. At least, she's pretty sure the lobster is to blame for the fact that she feels like shit and can barely stand, let alone think clearly or logically. She isn't dying, she knows that for a fact, but she's disoriented enough that she isn't certain of much of anything else.

She commits her first mistake when she fails to call for help upon first sighting the child, foolishly assuming herself more than capable of executing a rescue on her own. Her second mistake is grabbing for the child's hand rather than the wrist. She's able to grasp it, yes, grasp it and hold it for all of a minute or two, despite feeling as if she has no strength in her arms as she ineffectively tries to pull the child up out of the mire and onto the bank. But the toddler's hand is slippery with water and mud, her own palm slick with sweat, and she feels so weak, so weak and helpless and unable to do anything as the tiny hand slips from hers and the child disappears under the water's surface.

Unlike previous dunkings, this time the child fails to resurface, the small form sucked further and further down by the boggy muck. On the bank, the child's would-be rescuer lies flat on her stomach and searches the water next to the bank as best as she can, hoping to catch a hand or a scrap of cloth, some trace of the toddler. Logically, she knows that any additional attempts are useless—her mind searches even as her hand does, and she senses nothing more of the faint, childish mind she briefly came into contact with.

Straining against her mental limits, she presses further, hoping to find something, anything indicating that the child continues to live. All she finds are the vague, worried mutterings of nearby minds that can only be the toddler's family. Lying the on the ground, she feels her stomach lurch and clench. The child's parents are clearly concerned and distressed by the disappearance of their son; their upset will only increase when they learn of the death of their youngest from a complete stranger. She remembers what it was like, losing child. The pain, the hurt, the grief—it is not an experience she would wish on any person.

In all the years that follow, she will maintain that what happens next is both unplanned and unintended. She blames her confused state of mind, the reawakened grief, the way she automatically empathizes with the dead child's parents. She blames all of these things and refuses to acknowledge even to herself that some small part of herself, tucked away in the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind, wants the affection and casual closeness that could (will) result. Whether the decision is a conscious one or not, she feels a glowing warmth spread through her, feels her body shudder and shift, contract and reshape itself, and though she doesn't know why, at least she knows _what_ is happening.

Understanding continues to be elusive as the boy's parents burst into the clearing, the mother sobbing and sweeping the person on the bank up in a tight embrace. It isn't until the nigh-hysteric woman smoothes soft, pale hair back from a now-chubby face and smiles a brave, desperate smile that realization dawns, and by then it is too late.

"Don't you ever wander off like that again," the child's mother whispers harshly. " _Ever_."

The alien, still shaky from the effects of the unnecessary, unconventional regeneration, does the only thing he can do. He swallows and nods his head. "Yes, Mama," he says softly.

"We were so worried," the woman murmurs, cuddling him close. "You could have drowned, Patrick."

* * *

It's not so hard, being Patrick Stump. The alien doesn't slip into it right away, of course, but it helps that Patrick Stump is (was) not-quite fifteen months old, so it's not like anyone really knows him yet, or like he's expected to engage in any lengthy conversations any time soon. The first month or so the alien spends in observation, taking note of familial relations and dynamics. The Stumps aren't the kind of tightly-knit family unit that he's seen with some humans, but they also aren't removed or distant with one another. Mother loves Father, who loves her right back. Both of them love their children, and while they may not spend every waking minute with them, they also don't ignore the boys, individually or together. If he'd had a choice in the matter, the alien might've preferred a set of parents who didn't pay so much attention to their children, he thinks. He also acknowledges that he probably would've been upsetif he'd made this kind of sacrifice for parents any less dedicated to their offspring, so it's win some, lose some, in a way.

No, over all, being Patrick Stump isn't hard. It's _becoming_ Patrick that poses something of a problem, rather. Nearly three months pass before the alien starts to unconsciously think of himself when he hears the name, and not of the little boy—baby, really—he wasn't able to save. It takes another three months before he uses the name to refer to himself in his mind as well as in speech.

It's confusing at first, and not just because he's suddenly living with strangers, pretending like he's always been a part of their family, a member of their species. He's been on Earth for nearly two decades already, and pretending to be human isn't exactly a new experience for Patrick. Pretending to be someone's son, someone's brother... is. Patrick is a product of the genetic Looms, 'born' after all living Gallifreyans were cursed with sterility as a result of foolish behavior on the part of the Time Lords. He's never had parents before, just a vague knowledge that somewhere in his distant past there were once people who contributed some of the genetic material used to 'weave' him into existence. There were others who were produced by the Looms at the same time as him, but they weren't siblings, not really, not in the way that humans think of such things. They were unrelated and forced into stiff competition with one another from an early age. It was difficult, trying to make friends in those Loom-born generations.

More than once in the decades since, Patrick's wished that he'd tried harder to get to know his peers back on Gallifrey. It might have made some of what happened later on a bit easier if he'd had someone to help hold him up, help support him. Might have even changed the end result, but somehow, Patrick doubts it.

He knows that human children behave differently than Gallifreyan children (or at least, differently than the Loom-born Gallifreyans Patrick grew up with), that they tend to be more playful and ignorant, though not in a bad way, just an... uninformed way, Patrick supposes. The ignorance of innocence. During the first few months, he bases much of his behavior on Sam, Patrick's (his) older brother. Sam is a good model, helpful and kind, as courteous as can be expected of a child just this side of six can be. All the same, he is five years older than Patrick, and that's enough of an age discrepancy that it causes some comments at first, since Patrick is unusually well-behaved for a one-year-old. It probably doesn't help that he frequently forgets to dumb down his vocabulary.

It's... odd, to say the least. When he was a child—or rather, during his first childhood—Patrick was one of the slower ones. He didn't tinker with devices the way many of his peers did, didn't have any interest in books, in words, in history, in any of the other things that were considered common, acceptable pastimes among Gallifreyan children. By human standards, he wasn't by any means a stupid child, but by Gallifreyan standards he'd been called that more than once by the nursemaids who oversaw the Loom-born crèches.

Now, playing the part of a human child, Patrick is suddenly no longer slow, no longer a dull disappointment. Instead, he's called exceptional, extraordinary, and, upon occasion, precocious. At first he revels in the unexpected attention, but before long it occurs to him that doing so is, in a way, taking advantage of human ignorance. He quickly moderates his behavior and 'development,' allowing Sam to once more steal the spotlight with violin solos performed first for their parents and a handful of family friends, later at school concerts, citywide musical festivals.

Music is...

Music feels...

Music sounds...

No matter how he tries to finish these thoughts, Patrick is somehow never able to. He can't find the words to describe the thrill that ran through him the first time he heard Mr. Stump (his father) play a piece. He can't think of a way to excuse how he somehow managed to avoid hearing any live music played during his first few decades on Earth. How the recorded songs and jingles constantly inundating him from all sides failed to register with him before. Now, though. Now he can't escape it even if he wanted to—which he doesn't—because music is something important to this family, to _his_ family, which means music would have been something important to the human named Patrick, had he lived. Not that Patrick loves music because it's required of him, required of the role he's playing. He loves it because when he first heard those pure, clear notes, it wasn't just an epiphany, it was a feeling of coming home.

Ask any species who's heard it (not that there are many left, anymore), and they'll say Gallifreyan is (was) a remarkably musical language. Remarkable because, for all their complicated technology and ancient civilization, the people of Gallifrey were not ones to particularly cherish or champion any sort of musical talent. The ability to think quickly, to deduce logically, to succeed brilliantly was what was seen as important among Patrick's people. While music requires all of that from those that attempt it, the majority of Gallifreyan society was focused on the activities of the Time Lords at the time that Patrick was born, and so the nursemaids were told to encourage those talents which would be most beneficial to a Time Lord. That Patrick possessed perfect pitch and an uncanny ability to form melodies out of words had been of little importance to his caregivers when he'd continued to fail to grasp many of the simpler concepts concerning matter-conversion.

Patrick isn't glad of the death that forced him into his current situation, nor is he particularly proud of the fact that his body and his subconscious decided to team up in order to take advantage of that death. He is, however, grateful, ever so grateful for this opportunity to finally prove himself, this second chance to find himself. He's grateful to the human race for still loving something so basic, so complex as music. He's grateful to the family he's found— _his_ family—for being more than willing to take him by the hand and help him, lead him along. And more than anything, Patrick's grateful for the music, the wonderful, beautiful music, which makes him want to create again, to try and live.

It's been a long, long time since Patrick has felt like taking another chance at giving shape to a piece of his soul.

* * *

Since his mom doesn't get home from work until six most days, Frank has to put up with Carl even though Frank is totally old enough to stay home alone. His mom just has unwarranted concerns about possible pyromaniacal tendencies on the part of her son, which is completely ridiculous because Frank only set fire to the patio that one time and it wasn't like he even _meant_ to do it.

Luckily, as far as babysitters go, Carl is pretty decent. He's in high school already and busy enough with homework and stuff that Frank is mostly left to his own devices. Even when Carl drags him along on various projects for his part-time job, it's not too shabby. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Carl's trips frequently feature interesting things like talking to fish and visiting far-away places.

"You can't tell your mom about this, Frankie," Carl says. They're on a beach with white sand and palm trees, the sun beating down while in the distance kids run around in swimsuits. Frank's sweating like crazy in his T-shirt and jeans; he's already taken off his parka and wooly hat. Back home, it's rainy and miserable, the tail-end of fall.

"You say that _every_ time, even though I never tell her _anything_ ," Frank huffs. It's not fair that Carl treats him like a baby just because Carl can do magic and he can't.

"Hey, Romeo," a girl calls out, clambering down a nearby sand dune and waving. "What's with the squirt?" The girl has a funny accent, one that Frankie's not used to, but at least she's using English, which is more than can be said for a lot of people Carl visits.

"Hi. Sorry, I got stuck watching the neighbor's kid. Nic, this is Frankie. Frankie, Nic."

" _Frank_ ," he corrects, sticking out a hand for the girl to shake. She gives him an amused look but still takes it. "Are you magic too?"

"...Carl?" Nic says, frowning slightly.

Carl flaps a hand and shrugs. "Frankie tags along a lot when I'm on errantry. It's cool to talk with him here. He knows he's dead if he blabs to anyone."

"Screw you, Carl," Frank grumbles, kicking off his shoes. He bundles them, his socks, and his hat all up in his parka. "He won't take me to the place with all the aliens anymore just because the security computers don't know humans when they scan 'em." Aliens are way cooler than magic; Carl is really mean.

Nic raises an eyebrow at Carl, who at least has the decency to look a little chagrined. "He set off half a dozen alarms at the Crossings just by standing there," Carl insists, like that's really any kind of excuse to keep Frank away from _aliens_. "There's an abnormality in his name and their sensors can't handle it. Anyway, what's going on? Your message said you need an on-site consult?"

"Yeah, sorry about this. Normally I would've just sent you the specs, but there's something weird about this one—I think it might be some kind of time loop? But the boundaries aren't obvious and I just don't do enough with time to feel comfortable messing around with it on my own." She pulls a book out of nowhere and she and Carl bend over it and start arguing about a whole bunch of boring-sounding crap in the weird not-English that Carl always uses when he's talking shop with the various people they visit. Frank can understand the not-English if he focuses hard on what's being said, but it's not worth the effort when Carl's talking about causential reactors or whatever like he is now.

"This is going to take a while, Frankie. Why don't you go for a swim or something?" Carl grasps a knot on the string bracelet he wears with one hand while he flicks the fingers of the other at Frank, speaking a single word of not-English that Frank doesn't catch. The air shimmers just above Frank's skin and he grins. Normally, Frank might mind what Carl just did—it's a babysitting spell that Carl likes to use on Frank when they travel like this, something to protect Frank from local dangers like poisonous plants or animals and total overkill in Frank's opinion—but experience has taught Frank that the spell also has the added advantage of letting him breathe and see underwater for short periods of time.

Frank drops his bundled-up parka at the base of a nearby palm tree before wandering down to the water's edge, pausing along the way to roll up the cuffs of his jeans. It sucks that Carl didn't tell him to bring his trunks along, but Frank's not going to let a little thing like that keep him from enjoying the cerulean-blue water. The day is just too perfect to waste.

He starts out building sand castles at the water's edge, but it's not long before he's peeled off his T-shirt and jeans and is wading into the water in just his underwear. They cover nearly as much as his trunks would, so Frank figures they should work just as well. In the water, fish flit around, nibbling at his toes, and Frank occasionally ducks his head under the waves to exchange a word or two of not-English with them. Carl says the not-English is a language called Speech, something that everything can understand on a basic level, just most humans are a bit more distant from it than wizards and other things on Earth. Frank has yet to try it on plants or rocks or anything, but he likes that he can talk to animals with it.

Glancing back towards the beach, Frank is surprised to see how far he's drifted. He's a ways out now; Carl is totally going to freak if he notices. With a sigh, Frank turns and is about to start swimming back to shore when something warm and leathery brushes against his foot. A geyser of water suddenly shoots up a dozen or so feet away. "You should not be here," someone says, cutting through Frank's panic as a large, dark shape breaks the surface. 

Frank doesn't _think_ it's a shark—he's pretty sure those are smaller and have a fin on top like the one in _Jaws_ —but whatever it is is frickin' enormous. "Um, sorry, sir—ma'am?—didn't mean to be out this far. I'm just, y'know, gonna go back to shore," Frank babbles. Even if it isn't a shark, it's still definitely big enough to eat him in one bite.

"Hmm, no, that is not what I meant," says the whale, because that must be what it is, nothing else could be this enormous. A huge eye rolls around to look at Frank, examining him. "You do not taste of here."

"Well, I'm from Jersey and this, y'know, isn't there? Also, Jersey tastes nasty, so, like, I do too. Taste horrible, I mean." The last thing Frank needs right now is some whale deciding to swallow him up like something right out of _Pinocchio_. Carl will never let Frank live it down if he gets himself eaten.

"Perhaps that is the case," the whale thrums. "You use the Speech, but you are no wizard, landling." The whale uses an strange combination of words, something that roughly unfolds in Frank's head as 'juvenile creature that walks on the ground with two legs.' He supposes whales don't often need to use words like 'boy.' "There are not many of your kind who still understand the Speech easily, outside of wizards."

"Oh. No. Just, my neighbor, Carl, he's a wizard. He drags me along when he's supposed to be watching me and has to do magic for people and I guess I pick up stuff?" Frank explains, automatically glancing back towards the shore, where Carl and Nic aren't much more than dark specks on the beach. "Carl says it's like being exposed to radiation, only magic and not bad. I want to be a wizard—Carl says I have to find a special book to become one, though."

"Yes, some human wizards use books. I and my brethren listen to the Sea." The whale begins swimming towards the shore, slow enough for Frank to keep pace beside it in the deep water. He's glad; his arms are getting a bit tired and while he wants to keep talking, drowning would be nearly as bad as getting eaten.

"That sounds like a lot better than reading a stupid book," Frank says. It's not that he _minds_ reading, it just always feels like there are so many better things he could be doing instead of just sitting, reading. "Could the Sea tell _me_ how to do magic?"

The whale hums, pulling Frank along in its wake as it swims. "Wizardry is not just fun and games. It is also responsibility and danger."

"Yeah, I know. I mean, we're always having to go places so Carl can help people. Usually we don't go so far from home as this, but yeah." Frank relaxes, slinging an arm over the whale's large side, more than willing to have it do most of the work. "Small price to get to do _magic_. We went to the moon, once."

"Has your minder told you of the Oath, landling?" Unlike other nouns, the word 'oath' doesn't thrum with other meanings when the whale uses it. While it clearly means _more_ than just the word, one with a specific intention that could never be mistaken for anything else, Frank's brain doesn't automatically unwrap and define it for him the way it usually does with new words in not-English.

"...no? I mean, I don't think so." They're close enough to shore now that Frank can clearly see Carl and Nic bent over something on the sand. Probably the spell Nic wants Carl to help her with.

"Any creature can hear the Sea if they listen. Only those who swear an Oath to protect and preserve Life may practice the Art of wizardry," the whale explains.

Oh, well. That sounds easy enough—Frank has no problem protecting things. Ever since Carl started taking him places and animals began talking, Frank's had a hard time even swatting flies or squishing spiders. When everything can talk to you, your definition of 'people' becomes pretty broad.

When Frank tells the whale as much, it lets loose a gentle, burbling sound from its blowhole. Frank suspects it may be the whale version of a chuckle. "That is a good start, landling. You are still quite young, as your kind measures time, and life can be complicated enough without the burden of wizardry. Perhaps you should wait until you know yourself better before taking a deep dive like the Oath."

It's the same bullshit Frank's mom and Carl are always telling him—wait until he's older, don't leap without looking, always consider the consequences. Just once in his life, Frank wishes people wouldn't automatically assume he can't understand something because he's too young. "I'm _eight_ ," Frank says. "I'm not _that_ little."

The whale thrums beside him; it's the same sort of noncommittal noise Frank's mom always makes. It's head rises from the waves, one large eye rolling towards the beach. "Your minder calls for you, little land thing. Perhaps it is time for you to return."

Peering towards the shore, Frank can see Carl straighten out of his crouch and wave his arms. "I guess." Frank sighs. Probably time to go home, back to gloom and cold. "It was nice talking to you."

"You as well, landling." The whale gives Frank a nudge with its huge head, pushing him into shallower waters. "Give my greetings to my land cousins. I wish them the best with their tasks on the land."

"Will do. Bye!" With a kick, Frank starts the long swim back to the beach.

Later, after Carl finishes doing his thing with Nic and he and Frank are back home again, Frank's still thinking about what the whale said about how usually only wizards use and understand not-English—Speech—among humans. "Carl? What's going to happen to me when you go to college?" It's not going to happen for a couple years still, but the question is one that's begun to eat at Frank more than a little as he grows older.

"By then you'll be old enough that your mom'll let you stay home alone," Carl says as he slips his magic book back into its hiding place on his bookshelf.

"That's it? I mean, what about all of the magic and everything?" Frank doesn't think he could stand going for the rest of his life knowing that there's magic but never seeing any ever again after Carl's gone.

"Technically, it's wizardry, not magic. And you'll probably forget about wizardry once you're not around it all the time, I expect," Carl says, but his brow furrows, like he isn't entirely sure. "That's what happens with most people if they lose their wizardry or, like you, only have a passing acquaintance with it."

"That's _awful_ ," Frank says. "Hey, I know—I'll become a wizard! You were just a little older than me when you started, right?" Frank's asked Carl about becoming a wizard before, but each time Carl's just put him off with a lot of vague handwaving.

"It'd be pretty unlikely for you, sorry," Carl says with a grimace.

"How come? The whale said it's a choice you get to make, it's not something you get as a baby." Frank gets that the magic—sorry, _wizardry_ —Carl does is a big responsibility and not just for fun. He understands that a lot of what Carl's doing when they go places is helping other wizards fix stuff that's broken somehow, that wizards are the handymen of the universe. Still, Frank doesn't see why he can't do the same thing; he wouldn't mind helping people out if he got to do cool stuff too.

"It _is_ a choice, but it's not one everyone gets a chance to make," Carl allows. "Some people never get it because they're the wrong type of person and they'd misuse wizardry if they had it; some people don't get it because their minds aren't shaped right to accept the _idea_ of wizardry. And some people..." Carl hesitates, frowning like he's struggling to find the right words to use. "Some people are so confused inside that they have a hard enough time dealing with their own things. The Powers That Be don't feel it's fair to ask people like that to be wizards on top of everything else."

"I'm not _that_ complicated," Frank says, huffing in frustration. He's only eight, it's not like he's a teenager and all muddled-up or anything.

Carl gives him a strange look, like he wants to say something but doesn't feel he can. Finally, he just sighs. "I don't know what to say, Frankie. Just, they're the Powers—they likely know things about you that you've never even dreamed of. They generally know what's best for you."

"Ugh." It's bad enough Frank's mom suffers under that misguided belief. He doesn't need God or whoever thinking they can make decisions for him also. Unfortunately, Carl's Powers probably aren't any more likely to change their minds about that than Frank's mom is. Sometimes, life sucks.

* * *

Adults can call him crazy as much as they like, but Joe knows his next-door neighbors aren't from around here. It's not a case of his thinking they have odd taste in food (they don't), or that they dress strangely (another no—they look more normal than the cluster of women with spiky, oddly-colored hair who rent the house down the street), or even that they have foreign accents. Nothing like that. Just that when Mrs. Green was babysitting Joe last Saturday while his mom took his little brother Benji to the doctor, Mrs. Green didn't act right. Every other woman from the neighborhood that's watched Joe in the past has either plunked him down in front of the TV or shooed him outside to play. Mrs. Green didn't do either of those things. Instead, she made sure Joe and her son Emile had on their jackets, then took them into the city to go to the museum for the day. Not even the Children's Museum, but the Museum of Natural History. This, Joe knows, is not typical mom behavior.

Not that the museum wasn't interesting and different—it was! There were a lot of signs, and too much reading, but if he really wanted to know what something said, Mrs. Green or Emile helped Joe with the long words. Also, there were dinosaurs. At six years old, Joe is a big fan of dinosaurs.

Unfortunately, neither Mrs. Green nor Emile had much of any interest in dinosaurs, and they practically breezed past those to the boring exhibits on Eskimos and Ancient Egypt. Mummies and Eskimos are cool, but nowhere near as cool as Mrs. Green and Emile seemed to think they were. When Joe pestered them about it, Emile pointed out that, "Giant reptiles and reptile-like creatures are not that unusual. Highly intelligent life forms are. You are not curious about the culture of your people?"

"I'm Jewish," Joe pointed out. "I don't think Eskimos and mummies are really my people."

"He means your species, dear," Mrs. Green kindly told him.

Joe ended up having to pester his dad to find out what 'species' meant, but he's glad he did, because it just _proves_ that the Greens aren't locals. The next time he's at their house, playing with Emile in the backyard while his mom goes to her book club meeting, he asks, "What planet are you from?" and Emile nearly walks straight into Benji, who is sitting on the ground, babbling to himself and occasionally being distracted from his grass-eating activities whenever he catches sight of Guppy, Emile's dog.

"I cannot pronounce it properly," says Emile, "I have not yet grown my mandibles. How did you know?"

"The museum. _Everyone_ likes dinosaurs, haven't you been paying attention in class?" Emile has the same teacher as Joe, even though he's a year older, because they are in a mixed class of first and second graders. "Is it bad that I know?"

Emile shakes his head and smiles at Joe. "It is okay. You probably should not tell very many people, though. Humans are funny about people from other planets."

"That's okay," Joe says. "No one would believe me anyway."

Later, he asks Mrs. Green very politely if he can see _her_ mandibles, since Emile doesn't have any yet, and she's more than happy to oblige, popping them out of her mouth. They're shiny and bluish-green and very pretty. When Joe asks, she tells him about the cities hollowed out of the canyon walls of Malcassairo, and he delights in the way her mandibles click and whistle to produce the name. "Mr. Green and I are scientists. We study different species and their cultures. That is why we are living on Earth for now," she explains, gently pulling Benji's fist from his mouth and prying little chubby fingers open to remove the blades of grass there.

Joe frowns and nods. As neat as Mrs. Green's mandibles are, he still thinks dinosaurs are cooler.

* * *

Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III—Pete to his friends and family—is twelve.

He is twelve and he is grounded for reasons that are not important at this time (namely events involving younger siblings and scissors and unfortunate ventures into experimental cosmetology), so he is stuck at home even though it is summer vacation and his friends are all off hanging out together and making themselves sick on ice cream sandwiches. Pete's life is, he thinks as he glares out an upstairs window, one full of hardship, tragedy, and general suckage.

Of course, because he's grounded, bored, and staring into the backyard while feeling sorry for himself, he notices when a bright green, ovaloid shape falls out of the sky at an angle and plows into the weed patch that Pete's dad keeps insisting he's going to turn into a vegetable garden one of these days. Pete blinks several times and rubs his eyes, but no, he's not seeing things—there's a green thing a little larger than twice the size of full-grown man sitting in his backyard. It has a little window in the front, fins, and orange and yellow designs scrawled along its lime-green sides.

"That is _so cool_." Pete jumps to his feet and races downstairs.

"You had better not be leaving this house, young man," his mother chastises when he dashes past her. "And no running inside!"

"Sorry, Mom. Just going into the backyard!" he calls back over his shoulder, reluctantly slowing down to a skipping, jumping walk to cover the remaining distance to the door.

The spaceship (because what else could it be?) is still there when the back door slams shut behind him. Pete's grin widens until it nearly goes from one ear all the way to the other.

Most people would probably approach an alien spacecraft armed with some sort of weapon, Pete thinks as he cautiously makes his way across the yard to the still-smoking vehicle. He reassures himself that he is not most people, and he should be fine. After all, movies and television have taught him that if a dangerous, brain-sucking alien crash-lands on Earth, the ones who need to watch out are the grown ups, not the kids. Kids always come out on top.

When he's a foot or so away from the craft, Pete reaches up and bangs once on the side. Only once because he practically burns off the backs of his knuckles with that bang, the ship is so hot. Which makes sense, really, considering how it's still smoking from, Pete presumes, going super fast. Around it, summer-dry weeds are bursting into flame, some of them as far as one or two feet away from the ship itself.

Pete knows that the first thing you're supposed to do when you burn yourself is stick the burned bit under cold water, so he grabs the garden hose, turns it on to full blast, and cools down his hand. It doesn't look any worse than a bad sunburn, but the skin is still really tender, and it stings and aches when the water hits it. Still, Pete doesn't move his hand away from the water, because it also feels really good. While he's at it, he puts out the grass fires, since he's not all that keen on being blamed for setting the yard ablaze. Whenever any of the water splashes against the ship, it spits and sizzles and immediately turns to steam. It's kind of the neatest thing ever, and Pete wonders if the ship will crack if he cools it down really fast, the way his mom's cast iron skillet did the time he stuck it under the faucet when it was hot off the stove.

Of course, there's always the chance that the alien inside (because there _has_ to be an alien—it's a _spaceship_ ) can't breath oxygen, in which case it would probably suffocate or something if the ship cracked open unexpectedly and it didn't have time to put on a spacesuit. That wouldn't be so neat, Pete thinks, because aliens are a lot more interesting alive than dead. Unless they're scary, bad, brain-sucking aliens. Which this one (these ones? Maybe there's a whole group inside!) can't be because Pete's a kid, and everyone knows that when the spaceship is discovered by a kid, the aliens are friendly. He hopes.

All the same, it's got to be a pretty cheaply made spaceship if a kid can break it just by subjecting it to sudden temperature changes, Pete reasons. Forgetting about his hurt hand, he aims the hose straight at the ship and watches the steam roll off with glee. It's because he's watching the steam that Pete notices the way it's moving strangely, curling around and twisting, acting like it's being shoved about by an odd-shaped gust of wind. Or possibly something else.

Pete doesn't think, not really, just swings the hose over and aims it at where he thinks the gust might be, and then there's something silvery-white tumbling down from the top of the ship and across the patchy, charred remains of weeds. When it comes to a stop, it lies there in a heap, completely still. Inching over, Pete nudges it with his sneaker, and it shivers.

"You aren't a horrible, nasty, brain-sucking alien, are you? Because I think it's awesome you're an alien, but I don't really want you to eat my brain," Pete tells it. Originally, he thought the alien was a sort of pearly, iridescent white, but now that he gets a closer look at it, he sees that its scaly-smooth skin is actually a lot of different colors, shifting slow and lazy all over. Well, all over except for where Pete's sneaker is touching it. The colors there are swirling fast and frantic, occasionally growing brighter before fading away into white again. It looks like how Pete always imagined Saruman's robe must've looked after he went all evil, and wow. Pete's alien is kind of really amazingly awesome.

The alien shifts, and Pete tightens his grip on the hose, ready to swing it around and hit the alien with another blast, just in case it's a brain-sucker. Thankfully, it doesn't try to leap for his head. Instead, it moves a... leg? Pete assumes it's a leg, or an arm, since it looks like there are toes or fingers or something attached, and turns what Pete thinks is its head. The two shiny black orbs the size of ping-pong balls sure look like eyes, and those two holes look like nostrils, and that seam there looks like a mouth and _oh shit it's opening_ , it's totally going to eat Pete's _brain_ —

Surprisingly, no brain-sucking occurs when the alien gets its mouth open. It turns a vaguely violet color all over, closes its mouth, opens it. Repeats. The alien goes through the open-closing-violet thing several times, and it's becoming less violet and more green now. Pete hopes it's not choking on the atmosphere or anything. "Uh. Hey. Are you okay? You're not choking or suffocating or anything, are you? I mean, I dunno what you're used to, but the air here is mostly, um." He pauses, struggling to remember what the hell he learned in science this year. Not much. They don't really do physical science until eighth grade. "Oxygen? And, like, some other stuff too. Carbon dioxide, and... really tiny water molecules. I dunno, I could get a book, I guess, but then I'd have to go inside, and you might suffocate before I get back, and I can't take _you_ inside, because my mom would probably freak and call the cops. Or my dad. And then I'd be grounded _forever_."

Having closed its mouth, the alien is staring at Pete, but not making any sound. Probably it can't understand him at all and just thinks Pete's a primitive lifeform that's trying to decide if he wants to eat it or not. Pete doesn't blame it for keeping mum. "Look, can you even understand me? Nod your head for yes, shake it for no. Or, I guess, don't do anything at all, since you have no idea what I'm even say...ing..."

Still staring at Pete, the alien is nodding its head in a very slow and deliberate manner. Wow. That's pretty cool. "That. Is pretty damned cool," Pete declares. "I _told_ Mom it wasn't pointless to take guitar instead of Spanish as an elective—she keeps insisting that if I ever want people from other places to understand me, I have to learn their language, but here you are, and you're from another _planet_ and you understand me just fine!" Victory over his mom is something Pete cherishes greatly, particularly when said mom is responsible for keeping him stuck at home during summer vacation.

"Anyway. Hi, welcome to planet Earth. I'm Pete, this is my backyard you're in. Well. It's my parents' backyard, but I live here, too, so it's mine also. I'd, y'know, take you to our leader, except we haven't really got one, not on a planetary scale, at least, unless you count the U.N., and I don't even know where they meet up. Maybe in, like, Antarctica, since that's neutral ground, I think? And you're a big lizard, so you probably wouldn't like that much? Because it's super cold there? Plus, I don't know anyone important enough to get you in touch with the U.N. And if I tried, the government will probably try and take you to Area 51 and cut you up. Uh, the U.S. government, I mean. That's the United States of America, which is where you are now. Well. You're in Wilmette, which is in Illinois, which is part of the U.S. And you're really quiet. You're not plotting to steal my brain and take over the Earth, are you? Because, man, that would be _harsh_ , and totally unfair."

Apparently sensing its chance to get a word—a gesture?—in edgewise, the alien takes advantage of Pete's pause for breath and shakes its head. It raises its hand—Pete is about ninety percent sure it's a hand, or the near equivalent of one, at least—to the seam of its closed mouth, taps its lips, shrugs, then shakes its head.

"What, you're mute?" Ugh, of _course_ Pete would end up with a broken alien, that is so unfair. But no, it's shaking its head now, opening its mouth to touch a finger to its... well, it's blue-green and slimy and kind of looks like a big, flat slug the length of Pete's forearm, but he's guessing it's the alien's tongue. The alien taps its tongue a couple times, then shakes its head again. "Ooooh," Pete says, nodding to show he understands. "You understand what I'm saying, but you can't speak English. Man, that sucks. Can you write it?" More head-shaking. "Well... I guess I could teach you? But it would be really slow, and oh my _god_ so boring. I guess we'll just have to work out a faster system of communication until you learn enough English to answer." Though. Come to think of it... "Dude, it makes no sense that you can understand me but you can't speak English. You obviously _know_ English if you can understand me, so how can you not speak it? Look, I may be a kid, but I'm not _stupid_."

The alien opens its mouth like it's about reply, then stops and shrugs. Even if it doesn't speak English, it seems like the alien's got a fair grasp of human gestures, for which Pete's grateful. Right now, though, it really sucks that there's no way to address specifics when communicating with just nods and shrugs. Pete sighs. "I suppose it's pointless to ask your name, since you can't _say_ anything," he gripes. "But if you're planning to stay long, we should probably hide your spaceship, because otherwise my mom's gonna see it, and she'll _freak_. And then call the cops, who'll call the government, who'll steal it and then you'll be stuck here forever. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I mean, it's cool here, but stealing is wrong." He pauses for a moment, then adds, "Also, Mom'll probably yell at me lots for letting you land in the backyard, which, okay, we both know isn't my fault, but try explaining that to her. _Moms_."

Big as the alien might be when standing up, it takes a lot of effort for it and Pete to shove and drag the ship out of the charred tangle of weeds it's sitting in and into the tool shed. By the time they've finished, Pete is just grateful the shed is big enough to accommodate the ship, since he really has no idea where else they could hide the thing. At least no one ever goes in the shed anymore except for Pete, and that's only occasionally, when he has to take out the mower and make some attempt at maintaining the front lawn.

Having closed the door to the shed, Pete wipes the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. He's turning to say something to the alien when he freezes and feels his stomach knot in a really uncomfortable way. The alien isn't there anymore.

The alien isn't there and Pete _knows_ it's stupid to assume that just because he can't see the alien means it must be lurking right behind him, about to pounce on Pete and eat his brain, particularly when they just hid its spaceship so it isn't as if a quick getaway is quite as easy, but it _could_ be about to happen. Maybe. Suddenly, Pete finds himself wishing very, very hard that his dad was more the type of person to keep an axe in the tool shed. Or a pitchfork. There's more reach one of those.

Pete nervously clears his throat, stumbling backwards until his shoulder blades hit the still-warm bulk of the ship. "Um. Hello? Alien? Where—where are you?" he calls out, anxiously scanning his surroundings. A rustle from somewhere in the vicinity of a stack of flower pots draws Pete's attention, and he almost whirls around before he recalls himself. He nearly goes cross-eyed, trying to look over there and in the opposite direction at the same time. Just in case the sound is a distraction. Pete's seen enough movies to know all about _those_.

But no, the air near the pots swirls for a moment, and the alien seems to coalesce out of nowhere, iridescent white once more. "You can turn invisible?" Pete chances. "Or—not invisible, but you can blend in? Like, change your skin? Like a chameleon!" Which is freaking _awesome_ , especially since the alien seems to want Pete to be able to see it. Also, woah. _Stealth_ alien.

"You must have eyes on the back of your head, or something, to be able to mimic the stuff behind you," Pete says excitedly. His mom likes to claim that _she_ has eyes on the back of her head, but Pete seriously doubts that's true. For one thing, she's not an alien. He thinks. For another, Pete would be grounded for a _lot_ longer than he currently is if she did.

The alien has started to fade away again while Pete's been talking, and, more as an automatic response than anything else, Pete leans forward and pokes it with a finger. As soon as Pete touches it, the alien immediately turns a pale, shimmery white again. Pete wonders if that's its default state, or just the color it goes when it's surprised. He'll have to ask it once they've figured out a way to converse that doesn't consist entirely of nods and headshakes and shrugs.

Any attempts at improving interspecies communication are going to have to wait for now, though, because Pete's stomach is growling and he can hear his mom calling him in for lunch. "Hey, are you hungry? We should go in and meet my mom. She makes the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the _world_ ," Pete says, grabbing the alien's hand and dragging it out of the shed, across the yard, and into the house.

Summer vacation is definitely starting to look up.


	2. Chapter 2

After a great deal of work, Pete and the alien are able to develop a haphazard system of communication involving sign language, charades, a half-dead box of markers unearthed from the back of Pete's closet, and whatever paper they can manage to scrounge up. The situation is far from ideal, of course, but it doesn't look likely they'll find any way of improving it in the near future. As it is, Pete is still pretty confused as to how it is the alien can understand spoken English but can't read or write a word of it. Or understand anything broadcast or recorded. Maybe it's a psychic thing. Still pretty weird, but Pete's willing to forgive the alien for his oddities.

Once Pete's house arrest is over he rides his bike to the library, the alien clinging desperately to the rack on the back the whole way there. It takes some work and a lot of frustration with the electronic catalog (Pete learned how to use the card catalog when he was eight and he has yet to warm up to this newfangled system), but eventually Pete's able to track down a book on astronomy. He takes it to a table in an out-of-the-way corner, where he and the alien both sit down. Or at least Pete assumes the alien sits down—he can't actually see the guy.

"Okay," he mutters softly, "I'm gonna start with galaxies and work my way down. There are billions and billions of stars in the universe, for all we know yours isn't even visible from Earth." Also, the list of named galaxies is much shorter than the list of named stars—there are a _lot_ of stars listed in the book, and Pete really doesn't want to have to read all of them off, even if he does want to know where the alien is from. (They've tried looking up at the sky at night, but Wilmette is close enough to the city that it's a useless endeavor. Plus, Pete's pretty sure that the stars look different from Earth than they would look from the alien's home world, so it's doubtful the alien would be able to find the one he's from anyway.) Either way, Pete has a good reason for wanting to know where the alien's from—he wants something to call the alien. Right now he's calling the guy Hurly, in spirit of the fact that the alien's stomach can't handle any kind of meat and will, in fact, reject it rather violently. The problem with Hurly as a name, though, is that Pete's mom keeps giving him odd looks. Never good.

"Ambartsumian's Knot," Pete reads aloud. "Andromeda gal—" Hurly grabs Pete's arm, squeezing tight before relaxing. Pete makes a face. "What, seriously? Andromeda?" While he can't see Hurly, the grip on his arm releases and a finger taps the back of Pete's hand once, the sign they've worked out for yes. "But I can't call you _that_. Andromeda is a _girl's_ name," Pete feels compelled to point out. Sure, Hurly could be a girl, but somehow, Pete doubts it. He's pretty sure no girl would be okay with a nickname like Hurly, for one thing. "How about Andy instead? It can be a boy _or_ a girl's name, and it's not all, y'know, Greek," he suggests finally.

Hurly's tail slaps Pete's leg, which Pete has concluded has the same meaning as someone rolling their eyes. He takes this as a sign that Hurly approves of his new name. Which is really just as well—Pete gets kicked out moments later for talking in the library, much to his disgust. In Pete's opinion, the library is clearly prejudiced against aliens who don't know English. He tells Andy as much once the he's sure Andy's followed him outside.

They end up walking home because Pete can't convince Andy to get back on his bike. Maybe he should see about digging through the attic for the baby bicycle seat his mom got when he was little. She pulled it out again when each of his siblings was born, insisting that she was going to get back in shape by cycling more and driving less. Pete is almost positive the damned thing has never actually been used. Of course, attaching a baby seat to the back of his bike would absolutely destroy whatever cool guy cred he has, but Pete thinks that would be a small price to pay for having an _alien_ as a friend.

Most people would probably be less enthused about being friends with an alien who can't talk with them, but not Pete. His mom's been saying for years that he talks enough for two, so if anything, the arrangement with Andy is an ideal one. Particularly since hanging with Andy means Pete can let his mouth wander away from him, talking his way through thought processes without interruption. Granted, he's started to earn something of a reputation at school as that weird kid who still has an invisible friend, but Pete finds it easy to ignore the rumors. He's used to doing his own thing and turning a blind eye to what everyone else thinks of him.

Besides, it isn't as if Andy can't _actually_ talk, as Pete learns six months or so after Andy's arrival. It should probably be a bit disconcerting, being herded to his room by an invisible force as soon as he sets foot in the house after school, but Pete's had plenty of time to get used to it, so he just goes with the flow. Sometimes Andy has a hard time controlling his excitement over some new thing he's found, and Pete _did_ leave him by himself in the house all day.

There are papers all over Pete's bed when he makes it to his room, all covered with intricate, spidery writing. "What, you can _write_ now?" Pete says, surprised. Home-made sign language can only go so far, so he's tried to get Andy to communicate via writing in the past, but it's never worked for some reason. It would seem that Andy hasn't wasted the days he's had to himself since school started up again, if these papers are anything to go by.

A splash of yellow-orange shimmers across Andy's skin, his version of a smile. He seems pretty pleased with himself, and Pete can understand why, but still. He never expected Andy's story to be this _long_ when he finally got it. Andy tugs Pete forward, clearly eager to get on with it.

"Alright, alright, I get the picture," Pete says laughingly, dropping his backpack in the corner and bouncing onto his bed. Scooping up the papers, Pete dives in.

It looks like Andy went ahead and started from the beginning with why he's here on Earth. There's a whole bunch of complicated stuff with weird, long names that go right over Pete's head, though some of the words are vaguely familiar; he thinks his social studies teacher might've used them once or twice. In spite of that, Pete's able to get the general idea of what Andy's trying to say, mainly that Andy got kicked off his own planet for being some sort of political extremist. More importantly (in Pete's mind, at least) is that Andy didn't come to Earth completely unprepared, despite all appearances to the contrary. Andy _did_ learn to speak and write the local language before landing. Unfortunately, his computers' scans of Earth turned up Mandarin Chinese as the dominant language on Earth. Apparently, Andy's spent the last six months learning English, since the Mandarin's not doing him any good right now.

"But that makes no sense," Pete insists, glancing up from the packet. "If you didn't know English when you landed, you shouldn't've understood anything I said. I haven't spoken in Chinese, 'cause I don't know any."

Andy's tail slaps Pete's ankle gently, then reaches down to pull away the top sheet of the stack and tapping the middle of the next one. "Okay, okay, I'll keep reading, geez," Pete grumbles. "Just, you better not turn out to be psychic or anything, because that would be kind of creepy. I mean, way cool, of course, but also creepy." There's lots of stuff in Pete's head that he's not too keen on sharing with anyone; mainly stuff about some of the girls at school, who came back from summer vacation all curvy. Those curves do weird things to Pete's stomach that he really doesn't want anyone else to know about.

Pete frowns at the page, trying to understand what Andy's written, but it's just. It's really strange. Sure, Pete has a pretty high tolerance for the weird—when an alien landed in his backyard, he didn't think anything of making friends with it, after all. But even Pete's threshold for the unusual has a limit, it seems, since this is way past that limit. "Dude. No. You can _not_ expect me to buy this. There's no way you've got a fish in your head that eats and poops brainwaves, making it so you can understand anything in any language. Look, we totally learned about evolution in school, okay, and there's no way in a million, billion years that a fish like that could evolve. Just wouldn't happen."

Andy shrugs and, cocking his head to the side, reaches into what Pete assumes must be his earhole and tugs sharply. Much to Pete's surprise, there, wriggling about enthusiastically between Andy's two fingers, is a tiny, yellow fish. Pulsing a pleased shade of orangey-gold, Andy beckons to Pete with his free hand, raising the fish, then pointing at Pete. It's clear what he's asking, and while Pete isn't entirely sure about having a fish living in his head, if Andy's telling the truth, then that would mean that once the fish is in, Pete'll finally be able to understand Andy. Beyond their epic conversations in charades, that is.

Still, Andy _is_ asking to put a _fish_ in Pete's _head_. Pete is mighty protective of his head. "You're _sure_ this thing is just gonna eat my brainwaves and not my actual brain?" he asks nervously, taking the fish from Andy. It's really little, about the size of the first two joints on his pinky finger. He supposes that makes sense, since it has to fit in his ear canal. Still, Pete can't help but wonder what will stop the fish from going deeper into his head. Like other young boys, Pete's read his fair share of gross-out picture books. He's seen that photo of the botfly burrowed into a human brain; there is no way that's going to be his fate if Pete has anything to say about it.

Pete's caution just prompts a swirl of purple and an exasperated look from Andy, who goes on to flick his hand in a way that means he thinks Pete's being ridiculous. Andy flicks his hand like that around Pete a lot, which Pete feels is more than a little unfair, since circumstances around Andy lend themselves to ridiculousness, what with how Andy is a giant alien lizard and all. Whatever.

Sighing, Pete shrugs and lifts the fish to his ear, scrunching his nose as the slimy thing wriggles its way in. If nothing else, he figures that if Andy really had plans to control Pete's brain this way like something out of _Invaders from Mars_ , he wouldn't have bothered to become friends with Pete first. So, there's that.

"Is it anchored yet?" Andy asks, and Pete blinks, surprised.

"Oh, weird. I can hear you. Wait, I thought you were mute," Pete says accusingly.

"Not mute. My vocals just posses summits your auditories cannot perceive."

It takes Pete a moment to parse that. "You mean you talk at a pitch that I can't hear? Like a dog whistle!" Well, that makes sense, he supposes. If dogs can hear things that humans can't, shouldn't alien lizards be able to do the same? 

"Is that not the meaning of the statement I expressed?" Andy cocks his head to the side and darts out his long, blue-green tongue; his version of raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, okay. The psychic fish is awesome," Pete says, "but we have _got_ to work on your slang and sentence structure."

* * *

Patrick is trying to reach a book on a high shelf, and normally he'd just scramble up the shelves and grab it on his own, but one of the librarians caught him the last time he did that and got all upset and mean about it. Stupid librarians. So now he's trying to get a book down without the benefit of height. It doesn't even occur to him to ask an adult for help, because even after eight years, he's still not used to doing stuff like that. Plus, the adult would probably tell him that little boys don't read books from this part of the library, and try to direct him back to the children's books. Or maybe, if he's lucky, the young adult stuff.

"Hey, kid. Which one d'you want?" rumbles a voice from behind him. It cracks halfway through the question, and Patrick turns, surprised to see a chunky, awkward-looking teenager about the same age as Patrick's brother Sam.

Patrick blinks. Usually kids like this are more interested in teasing him or roughing him up. He isn't used to seeing them in the library. "One of the Austens," he says slowly, trying to figure out why this kid isn't sending him off to read one of those depressingly formulaic Goosebumps books that are currently all the rage with Patrick's peers.

The teen nods, moving closer to glance over the titles. "Which one? There're six."

"Don't really care. The librarian just said Austen was classic," Patrick replies, leaving out the part about how the librarian hadn't been telling _him_ that, but rather a twenty-something-year-old. Patrick just happened to overhear.

"How about _Northanger Abbey_? That's the one I like best," the teen says, handing a copy down to Patrick. It's a large-print edition, and Patrick feels like rolling his eyes, but he supposes he should be grateful that the teen's taking him seriously at all.

"Thank you," Patrick says politely.

"No problem. So, what? Is this some sort of _Matilda_ thing, or did you just read it one too many times and decide to try it out for yourself?" The boy studies Patrick, not challenging or angry, just curious.

"No, Matilda is a girl's name. My name is Patrick. That is a boy's name, because I am a boy," Patrick replies slowly. He tries hard, but sometimes he still finds humans confusing.

The teen's smile is slow but kind. "Awesome. I'm Bob. _Matilda_ is a book about a girl who's really smart and reads adult books. Just wondering whether you're imitating her or if you actually are one of those little genius kids," he says.

"Oh. I'm not a genius," Patrick says, because his mother has told him it is important to be truthful at all times, and the truth is that he isn't a genius, just an adult with a boy's body. "I just think the children's books are dull and redundant. There isn't much character development, and the plots are generally very straightforward and obvious. I thought was primarily women who read Jane Austen's works?"

"Yeah, and kids whose English teachers think 'today's youth' don't read enough 'classic literature.' I mean, whatever, right? She wrote some pretty funny stuff, once you get past the romance."

Patrick considers this and nods. Teachers are odd, he's decided. The one he currently has doesn't make them read anything more complicated than simple short stories for class, but she does have them keep a list of their free-reading books. Lately, she's always calling Patrick's mother and telling her about how Patrick lies about the books he reads on his reading list—thus the talk about truthfulness—since she doesn't believe he's able to read the books that he does. "This _Matilda_ ," Patrick asks Bob carefully, "would it be considered appropriate for someone my age?" Maybe he can keep two reading lists. One to turn in, and one to keep track of what he's already read, so he doesn't accidentally read the same thing twice.

Bob grins. "Sure. Not so repetitive or redundant as you might think, either. If you like it, you could probably get away with reading _Henry Sugar_ also. It's more adult, but Roald Dahl's known for children's books, so you'll get fewer odd looks that way," he explains. Patrick nods very seriously and makes a mental note of that. It seems to him that Bob is the type of person who understands about being misunderstood and having a hard time living up to appearances.

"Awesome," Patrick replies, testing the unfamiliar word grinning up at the teen. "Awesome, Bob."

* * *

Bob, as it turns out, is psychic.

For Patrick, this is, as one might expect, something of a problem. Unlike some of his species, he's never been particularly talented when it comes to telepathy. He's adept enough to make it easier for others to access his own mind, but he lacks the innate skill needed to ward off intruders. It isn't something that worries him initially, as humans with psychic abilities are so few and far between. Many never realize their latent talents, and even if they do, the majority never refine them to the point that they can successfully pick out from a crowd the one mind that is alien in origin. If anything, Patrick worries more about other extraterrestrials finding him—there are a number of species in this galaxy and others in which telepathy is a common ability. His own, for example.

However, it is one thing to hide from a human psy in a crowded room, and quite another to spend time around one on a frequent basis, particularly when sometimes it's just the two of you.

Careful probing on Patrick's part gives him the information that Bob's aware of his talent, if unable to use it deliberately. Until recently, it's been nothing more than very good intuition on Bob's part. Only now that Bob's hit puberty, that he's met Patrick, another psychic, it's starting to change. It's odd, and Bob's having a hard time of it because his telepathy is fluctuating and sometimes he's completely 'deaf' and sometimes he's incredibly receptive, picking up things from everyone within a mile radius, and that kind of thing is sort of frightening when you're barely thirteen and not used to it.

Patrick notices this because even though he only just met Bob and even though Patrick's very weak when it comes to psychic ability, anyone with just the smallest amount of talent notices when another psychic is going through puberty like that. While he realizes it's a significant risk, Patrick would feel guilty just leaving Bob to deal with it on his own, so he makes the effort to become friends with him, despite the difference in their ages.

Or, possibly, because of it. Bob has always been a bit out of place among his peers, and Patrick even more so.

At first, Mrs. Stump is delighted when Patrick very politely asks one morning if he may have a friend over after school, please? Patrick understands that she thinks he has difficulties making friends despite being a sweet, brilliant boy (her words, not his). It isn't so much that Patrick has problems making friends (though he does) as he doesn't have much interest in his peers, who always seem childish and uninteresting. For his family's sake, Patrick has tried to fit in better, but the other children avoid him nearly as much as he avoids them, sensing that there's something a little off about him. Something not quite right.

Patrick feels slightly guilty at the look of confusion on his mother's face when he arrives home trailing an awkward-looking Bob behind him. "Hello," she says to Bob. "Sam won't be home for a few hours yet," she tells him, because Sam is nothing like Patrick and does all kinds of after-school activities, has all sorts of friends.

"This is my friend Bob, Mom," Patrick says, pushing up his glasses and staring up at her with big eyes. "We met at the library. He plays drums."

"Oh." Patrick can tell she thinks it's rather odd that Bob is willing to hang out with a child so much younger than him. Odd and suspicious. "Are you sure–"

"Bob says he'll teach me some new beats. And he thinks he knows how to fix it so I can reach the kick pedal and the cymbal at the same time. And his mom knows where he is, don't worry," Patrick says. He waits for Bob to mumble an awkward greeting before grabbing his hand and tugging him off to the basement where Patrick keeps his kit stored.

Behind them, Mrs. Stump sighs and shakes her head. Some days she thinks she just won't ever understand her younger son.

"Sorry about that," Patrick says once the door to the basement is closed and they're stomping down the steps. "She worries about me, sometimes." He doesn't know why he feels he has to excuse his mother's actions to Bob, or why it should matter.

Bob shrugs. "Moms are like that. Are you really Sam Stump's kid brother?" he asks.

"Yes. Do you know Sam?"

"He was in band with me last year and the year before." Bob shrugs again. "You and him are pretty different, is all."

"You and he," Patrick corrects without thinking. Bob's observation makes sense. Sam is one of those kids who, despite being the best at everything—sports, music, classwork—is known and liked by nearly everyone. People notice him, he's friendly and personable, it's hard to find anyone who doesn't get along with him. In short, he is almost the exact opposite of Patrick. "I'm the normal one."

Bob snorts. "Yeah, the normal one who reads Jane Austen at age seven."

"I'm nine and I'm in fourth grade. I'm just small for my age." Patrick walks purposefully over to his kit and sits down. The seat's set so he can reach the snares and cymbals, so his feet just barely touch the top of the kick pedal. "I've tried tying blocks of wood to my feet, but it's hard to get the pedal to go down when I do that."

"Have you tried attaching a block to the pedal?" Bob suggests, looking over the kit. "That would work better than the other way around."

Twisting around, Patrick stares at Bob. It's an excellent suggestion—his sneakers have better traction than the top of the pedal, so there shouldn't be a problem of his shoe slip-sliding the way it did when he'd attached the wood to his shoe instead. If anything, Patrick's ashamed he didn't think of it himself. "That's a good idea, Bob," he says. "Thank you."

Shrugging, Bob gives him a tentative grin. "It's cool. I had the same problem of not being tall enough when I was your age."

The protest, "But you're _big_!" escapes Patrick's mouth before he can stop it, and it's only serious willpower that keeps him from slapping his hands over his mouth in embarrassment.

"Didn't get a good growth spurt until I turned eleven," Bob admits. "Before that, it was hard. My mom wasn't about to shell out the money on a kid-size kit when I was just going to grow out of it in a couple years."

"Yes," Patrick says, because his parents said the same thing. "I guess I could wait until I'm big enough to play it more easily, but I want to learn now."

"Yeah? You figure you're gonna learn how to play these like a pro and be a rock star?" Bob laughs.

Patrick blanches, eyes going wide. Just the vague idea of playing in front of a lot of people, drawing that much attention to himself, is enough to make his stomach twist in knots of terror. He doesn't doubt that if his particular situation were ever discovered, he'd be in for a shitload of trouble. "What? No," he says, forcing out a laugh, albeit a nervous one. "I just like the sound of drums."

* * *

Life would be a lot easier, Joe thinks, if one of his closest friends wasn't hellbent on killing one of the closest friends of another of Joe's friends. Which sounds way more complicated in Joe's head than it actually is, which just goes to show... Something. Probably that whatever beef Mike has with William Beckett really, really isn't worth the aggravation, sniping, fighting, and various modes of guerrilla warfare that Joe finds himself unintentionally subjected to.

"Mike," Joe says calmly—patiently, even! Seriously, Mike does not deserve a friend as good as Joe. "William Beckett is not trying to undermine you and all that you love."

"You're biased," Mike insists, glaring at the group of boys sitting on the other side of the quad. It's a bit frightening—for a 13-year-old, Mike pulls off a very convincing impression of a psychotic axe murderer. If Joe didn't know Mike as well as he does, he'd think Mike was about ready to start ripping off heads and drinking babies' blood. Though, on the plus side, hanging out with Mike does wonders for Joe's reputation as a tough guy.

Still, there are various disadvantages to the current arrangement. Across the quad, Beckett is matching Mike glare-for-glare. While Joe's nominally on Mike's side in all of this, Joe does have to admire the expressiveness of Beckett's face. Beckett is definitely a boy who knows how to handle his eyebrows. Joe can respect that in a guy. Well. Insofar as Joe can respect anything in this insanity.

"Look. All I'm saying is that if Beckett were really as awful as you seem to think he is, Jon wouldn't be friends with him. C'mon, Mike, it's _Jon_. He's like... puppies and kittens and rainbows. I don't think puppies and kittens and rainbows _can_ be friends with bad things. It's against the laws of the universe or something."

Unfortunately, Mike does not have as much faith in the purity of puppies and kittens and rainbows as Joe does, and this argument fails to change his opinion on the matter. It's starting to look like Joe is going to have to take drastic measures in order to restore peace to the lunch patio and sanity to his school days. Drastic measures or other methods of attack.

"Tragic, is what it is," Joe tells Jon later. Technically, they're supposed to be building birdhouses since they're in woodshop, but all the saws are currently in use by other pairs of students, so instead they're having a good time designing their four-story, six-balcony birdhouse with gingerbread trim. They're also using up all of Mr. Cowan's good markers to do it, so they have to be careful and make sure he doesn't catch them.

"That we can't figure out how to wire an elevator? I dunno, birds have wings, I don't think they'd use an elevator much. Also, they might electrocute themselves," Jon points out.

"Practicality does not matter in the face of _awesome_ ," Joe reminds him, momentarily distracted. "Remember that, young Walker. Anyway, I was talking about Mike and Beckett's crazy, pointless feud thing."

"Dude, I know he's your friend and all, but Carden is way scary," Jon insists, eyes huge in his chubby little face. Sixth graders are kind of really ridiculously adorable, sometimes. Joe's glad _he_ was never like that.

"He isn't, really," Joe argues. His tongue sticks out as he carefully draws in another turret. This would probably work a lot better if he weren't completely lacking artistic talent, but Joe's not about to let a little detail like that stop him. "He looks surly, but in reality he's a big teddy bear. He's got pictures of cats up in his locker." Which is a complete lie, because Mike doesn't even _use_ his locker, but it's not like Jon knows that. This lie is totally justified by the fact that it is in the interest of establishing peace between Mike and Beckett. Also by the way Jon perks up at Joe's mention of cats.

"Really? My parents say I can get a cat my next birthday since my fish haven't died. It's going to be _amazing_."

The next time Jon runs into Mike, he starts chattering away a mile a minute about the cat he's going to get instead of hiding behind Joe or making up some flimsy excuse to flee as was his wont before. Joe counts this as a win, and all but pats himself on the back. He knows that now it's only a matter of time before peace comes to the lunch patio. There is very little that can stand up to the tiny, adorable force of nature that is Jon Walker talking about cats.

* * *

They were planning on testing out the egg-launchers the built for science class after school today, but it started raining during fifth period and has yet to let up. Joe and Emile stare out the Greens' living room window at the rain-drenched street beyond, feeling morose.

"This is so unfair," Joe complains. "We finally get some cool homework and we can't even _do_ it."

"Mom says storms on Malacassario last for weeks and the canyons turn into rivers," Emile says, staring outside and grimacing. "They have to use diving equipment just to go to the store."

"Ugh. I can see why you came here."

"Well." Emile tilts his head to the side. "I did not have a choice. And it is not like I even remember Malacassario. I had not even pupated when we left."

This news succeeds in distracting Joe from their current situation by virtue of the fact that it's the first time he's heard of Malmooths having a pupal stage. Emile tries to answer his friend's questions, but it's not like Emile even remembers it, and he's getting the same education as Joe, which means long on Earth biology and completely lacking on anything related to Malmooth physiology.

"You can't just say things like that and _not_ expect me to wanna know more," Joe insists as Emile struggles to recall what his parents have told him in regards to Malmooth metamorphosis.

"I think Mom put the family photo albums in the attic," Emile offers.

Which is how they end up rummaging through boxes in the Greens' attic thirty minutes later. Emile's baby book is sitting next to the steps, found and forgotten early in their explorations. Emile may be an alien, but he's spent most of his life living as an Earth child and, like Joe, he's a teenage boy. The attic of two extraterrestrial scientists is more than enough to make them forget the weather and occupy them both for hours.

"Check it out," Joe says. The box he's been burrowing through has something peach-colored and rubbery at the bottom; he thought it might be some kind of alien pool float up until he found the face. "Your parents have a body stashed up here."

"What?" Emile scrambles over to have a look and almost immediately hits Joe in the shoulder. " _Joe_."

Joe cackles, feeling pretty pleased with his joke. "Man, why do they even have an extra human suit?"

"Maybe it is for me when I get older? The suits can only show so much human growth and development," Emile says. "I am on my fifth one now, and I will need a new one with puberty capabilities soon."

"It doesn't look anything like you, though," Joe points out before shrugging his shoulders and setting the suit back in the box. "What's that?" Now that he's not laughing, Joe notices that Emile's holding something bumpy and blue-green in his hand. A faint light pulses inside, reacting as Emile shifts his grip on it.

"I found it over there," Emile gestures to the boxes he's been pawing through. "I think it is a Malmooth book?"

"Doesn't look like a book." Mr. Green has been letting Joe join in on Emile's Malmooth language lessons for ages now, ever since Joe learned of the Greens' otherworldly origins. Malmooths favor circular writing on large sheets of paper that can be rolled up over bound books and straight lines, but it's not that different from learning Hebrew, in Joe's experience. Whatever Emile has found looks nothing like the book-scrolls Mr. Green has been teaching them out of.

"Well, uh, it is like. Before coming into contact with other species and adopting an ideographic alphabet, Malmooths traditionally communicated by scent and light," Emile explains. "Really old books and things are recorded on—" He says something musical and sweet-smelling, something Joe can never hope to reproduce with his limited human vocal chords and complete lack of pheromone control. "I have never seen one in person," Emile admits, "but they kind of look like this, from the vids on my mom's datapad. I did not even know my parents owned one. They are supposed to be rare." He strokes a finger down the side of the sphere and the lights grow brighter as the air around them takes on an aroma somewhere between nutmeg and Joe's grandma's perfume.

"What's it about?" Joe asks, reaching out to touch one of the sphere's bumps. The bump immediately goes dark, prompting a grimace from Joe. "Sorry. I guess it doesn't like humans."

"It should not matter," Emile says, frowning. "It responded to me and I am in the human suit, so it is not as if it knows I am Malmooth." He strokes it again and the dark spot lights up once more, though now it's more purple-peach instead of blue-green and the smell is closer to almonds with a hint of burnt sugar.

"Can you understand it? Or is it all Ye Olde Malmoothian, like Shakespeare or something?"

"It is..." Emile turns the sphere over in his hands, then glances up at Joe, eyes wide. "It is talking to me. It says I could be a wizard."

"What, like Harry Potter?" Joe can't keep the skepticism out of his voice—aliens he can deal with, magic is another matter entirely.

"No, do not be silly. It means a _wizard_ -wizard, not a magic wizard," Emile says with a frown, waving his free hand.

"There's a difference?" Joe isn't as widely-read as Emile—he tends to spend his free time fooling around in the music room at school, not the library—but last he heard magic and wizards were all still firmly planted in the realm of fiction.

"Oh. It... does not really translate well into English," Emile explains. He rolls the sphere around between his hands, staring down at the gently-shifting colors and inhaling deeply. A musty smell like old books wafts through the room, but it's quickly supplanted by the fresh, clean scent that always fills the air right after it rains. "Wizards are... protectors? Crusaders? They fight the Cold Dark—the End of Things—it is... Are you sure you do not know this? There are human wizards; my parents have met some." 

"Just because some humans know about it doesn't mean we all do," Joe reminds him. " _I_ know about aliens, but you know the other kids at school'd freak if you popped out your mandibles at 'em."

"True."

"Are you going to do it? Be a wizard?"

"I do not know. It is a big decision, a lifetime commitment. A lot of wizards die while fighting the Cold Dark," Emile says. He spins the orb in his hands one final time before setting it aside on a nearby shelf. "I will have to think about it. Many wizards do not live to see the end of their first year of practice. At the same time, wizards are respected across the entire universe."

"There are wizards on other planets?" Joe has learned a lot about other species, cultures, and planets over the years; it's only to be expected when he's lived next door to two xenoanthropologists for the majority of his life. Still, this is the first time he's heard anything about _wizards_.

"There are wizards everywhere the Cold Dark does not control," Emile says softly. "And sometimes they even manage to sneak into those worlds and realms it has taken as its strongholds."

"If they're so important and stuff, how come no one talks about them on Earth?" Joe wants to know. It's not that he doubts Emile—the guy has a hard time being anything less than sincere; Joe thinks it might be a core Malmoothian trait. It's just that Joe finds it hard to believe there's some interstellar brotherhood working against a Big Evil when they've never even made the papers.

"The Cold Dark," Emile says solemnly. "It champions ignorance and intolerance, encourages those behaviors that will foster unwelcome environments for the open practice of wizardry."

They learned about the Salem Witch Trials in school last fall, so Joe supposes Emile has a point there. "Well, then how do _you_ know so much about wizards?" Joe asks.

Emile wrinkles his nose. "Malacassario is not an ignorant backwater. My parents made sure I knew at a young age of the Cold Dark and those that fight to hold it back. Also, my dad's sister is a wizard of senior standing on Malacassario. Wizardry frequently runs in families, so there was always a chance I would be offered the mantle of wizard."

Joe sighs and pushes himself to his feet, brushing dust off his knees. "I don't know how I feel about you being a wizard. On the one hand—yay, fighting evil and doing spells. On the other hand—you probably wouldn't have any time to hang out if you're busy saving the world all the time," he admits. Though. Idea. "Unless I become a wizard too?"

"It is not something you can just _be_ ," Emile tells him. He picks up the photo album they originally came for and follows Joe out of the attic. "However, I would not be surprised if you were offered a chance to take the Wizard's Oath. You have shown remarkable tolerance for all lifeforms as well as a great capacity for learning and kindness. All of these are considered likely traits to encourage an inclination for wizardry."

"Huh," Joe says, taking the stairs two at a time. "Something to keep in mind, then, I guess."

* * *

After nearly seven years of minding his own business, Bob honestly isn't expecting it when some guy drops into the seat across from him at Starbucks and says, "Turn it down, will you?" Bob hadn't thought his Walkman was _that_ loud, but the guy looks tiny and dangerous, so Bob does as asked.

Instead of fucking off and leaving Bob alone, the guy rolls his eyes. "Not that. Your damned brain. Some of us have managed to escape trig once and for all and don't need to have sine and cosine crowding up our heads again." _Put up a fucking shield already, kid,_ leaps to the forefront of Bob's mind, tone and inflection just the same as the guy's voice, only now it's clear and unimpeded by the music coming from Bob's headphones.

"You. How." While Bob's pretty sure the telepathy is a thing Patrick's figured out over the years, it's not something he's ever actually _talked_ to anyone about it. The talent is one that comes and goes; sometimes he can hear other people's thoughts really clearly, sometimes it's just him in his head. The idea that he might not be the only one who can do it has just never occurred to Bob.

"Seriously? How the hell have you gone this long without anyone calling you out on it? The greater Chicago region is pretty much the capital of angsty, empathic goth kids," the guy says, staring at Bob, clearly aghast.

"I, uh, don't know what you're talking about?" Bob tries, tugging his books closer and surreptitiously trying to pack up his things without drawing any attention to himself.

The guy's hand shoots out, covering Bob's and stopping him from leaving. Inked patterns wind their way up the man's outstretched arm and Bob gulps. Sure, he hangs around the scene to a certain extent, but Bob likes to think of himself as a good kid overall, one who pays attention to his mom and doesn't deliberately seek out trouble he doesn't need. Typically, the most excitement he sees in a week comes from when Patrick drags him to high school football games in order to watch the halftime shows put on by the bands. Right now, Bob is so out of his league that it doesn't even _approach_ being funny.

"Hey. Hey, kid. Calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you," the guy says, his face softening. "Look, just... reach out. You should be able to tell if I'm lying, right?" It's a good point. Though Bob's never deliberately 'reached' for anyone before, he's been able to tell if someone is purposefully lying to him for years now. This guy is sincere, if nothing else. Bob relaxes his body, though he still feels tense, on edge. "Better," says the guy.

"If you aren't going to hurt me, it shouldn't matter if I leave or not," Bob points out. "I didn't mean to crowd up your head or whatever. Let me go, I won't bother you again."

"Really? You're going to shield your mind from now on?"

"Well..."

"Mental shields are pretty simple and intuitive, but if you haven't figured them out on your own yet, it's not likely that you're going to," the guy tells Bob smugly. "You're going to need someone to teach you."

"Someone like you?" Bob asks skeptically. This guy's shields can't be much if they're easily breached by a single, untrained telepath.

"What? No, fuck no. I'm no teacher," the guy quickly backtracks, shaking his head. "And telepathic shields are as much made up of mutual respect as actual blocking. Telepaths don't just reach out to dip into other people's minds, they project their own thoughts. People just can't hear what's projected unless they're also receptive and what're you doing?"

Glancing up from his notebook, Bob smirks. "Taking notes. For someone who isn't a teacher, you're pretty good at lecturing."

"You're not going to let me get out of this, are you?"

"You said it, not me."

The guy groans, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his face. "Fuck. Alright, fine. I'll teach you how to shield and all that shit. Just no stupid questions, okay?"

"Sounds fair. I'm Bob." Bob reaches out, offering a hand.

"Brian," the guy says, shaking Bob's hand.

"So," Bob says, pulling back his hand, "can non-telepaths shield too?"

"What did I tell you about stupid questions, Bob? No, of course they can't—they don't have the mental control to pull off something like that," Brian snaps peevishly, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry, just curious," Bob says, raising his hands defensively. "Seems kind of unfair."

"That's just the way it is."


	3. Chapter 3

According to what everyone else in the neighborhood says, the Greens move away a month before Joe's fourteenth birthday. Joe knows that, in actuality, they've just returned to their home planet because their grant money has run out, and Mr. Green has finally finished the book on bees that he's been writing. It's not actually about bees, Mrs. Green explained to Joe when he was eight, it's about Bees, which are those bees that aren't real bees, but instead are an alien species from a planet called Melissa Majoria that live on Earth and look like normal bees to humans. Which makes sense, Joe supposes—the Greens are anthropologists, and Mrs. Green has been studying human culture while Mr. Green has been busy with the not-bee Bees.

As a parting gift, Mrs. Green leaves the extra human suit with Joe. It turns out it was supposed to be for their third research partner, a Malmooth who was going to join them after the Greens had been on Earth for a couple years, but apparently he lost his funding at the last minute and never made it. Which would be why the suit was sitting in Greens' attic, just waiting to freak out unsuspecting boys.

"There's an optional collapsible internal skeleton, so it fits most sizes and species," Mrs. Green tells Joe. "It also has a progressive aging function that can be activated if you like, but I don't recommend that, since the equipment for that feature is touchy, and once activated, it's very difficult to turn it off. You can use the suit to buy alcohol or something, I suppose, but there's never been an Earth identity or any paperwork created for it, since that was something Yanpoh was going to do when he got here." 

Joe nods and tries not to look disappointed. Mrs. Green may be an alien, but she's still an adult and an authority figure, and he doesn't doubt that she would really frown on his using the gift to break laws. "I just put it on and seal it up and it makes me big?" he asks, examining the suit. There's a long slit down the middle that he supposes must be the place where you climb in. Out of the box and all laid out, it looks kind of like a big, peach colored pair of footed-pajamas, only with attached gloves as well as a hood that covers the entire head. It looks just as creepy as Joe remembers from the first time he saw it.

"Well, it is a bit more complicated than that," Mr. Green admits. "Here, this should help some." He hands Joe the instruction manual for the suit, and Joe groans when he sees that it's a three-foot-long roll of paper.

"It's in Malmooth, Mr. Green! You know it takes me _forever_ to read Malmooth!" He supposes it's his own fault for begging to be allowed in on Emile's Malmooth language lessons when they were small, but _still_. Joe prefers speaking it to reading it, all the little squiggles confuse the heck out of him. The clicking noises, on the other hand, are a lot of fun to make, even if his lack of mandibles means his accent will always sound like the Malmooth equivalent of a lisping six-year-old.

"Look at it this way, sport—it is a good way to keep your hand in, and it means that if your brother or your parents happen to find the suit, or the manual, or both, they will not be able to do anything with them," Mr. Green says cheerfully. Sometimes adults are evil, Joe thinks, even if Mr. Green _does_ make a good point. Joe really doesn't need his Mom or Dad or Benji finding his very neat human suit and taking it out for a joy ride. Not that his parents go into his room very often, but it would really suck if they did something like that. And Benji, of course, is never to be trusted with stuff like this. Still.

"Are you ever going to come back?" Joe asks after he releases Emile from a hug.

"Probably not," Mr. Green says apologetically. "Earth is a Level Five planet, which means it is still fairly primitive and has not achieved interstellar travel yet. The official position of the Shadow Proclamation on interaction with Level Five planets is that it should happen as little as possible."

"Sorry, kiddo," Mrs. Green says, ruffling Joe's hair. "You've been a good friend and we'll miss you. If more humans were as curious and xenophilic as you are, your species would probably make it to the stars a lot sooner."

After the Greens leave, Joe doesn't expect to ever see another alien. If this Shadow Proclamation (which, okay, is the weirdest name ever for a group—isn't a proclamation a type of speaking?) is so uptight about visitors coming to Earth, it doesn't seem likely to Joe that Earth is going to become the destination of interstellar travelers anytime soon.

Which just goes to show that Joe doesn't know everything, because less than a year later, he's on his way to the bus stop after a show in the city when he hears the beat. He knows he shouldn't really investigate—it's not the best of neighborhoods and at almost-fifteen, Joe is still a bit of a shrimp. Hell, technically, Joe's not even supposed to ride the bus on his own this late at night, but he somehow misplaced Mike earlier, so it's going home alone or finding a payphone to call his parents. Which has a good chance of resulting in his being grounded for _ages_. Joe knows all of this. He also knows that the rhythm isn't like any he's ever heard before.

Joe traces the sound to an alley just past the bus stop. He doesn't know what he expects to find when he peeks around a building to peer into the alley, but he's sure it isn't five overturned trash cans, cut down to various heights. The back door of one of the buildings lining the alley is propped open a little bit, and weak light shines out of it, partially illuminating the darkness.

Illuminating the dark, but not the drummer. Joe can still hear and see the cans being hit, but he can't for the life of him see whoever is hitting them, even after his eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting of the alley.

Once they've adjusted, however, Joe stumbles and nearly falls on his ass because there's something _moving_ in the air _above_ the cans.

At first he thinks it must be a bunch of really brightly colored birds, but it's too late for songbirds to be out, and anyway, he can see as he watches that the colors form designs and patterns, that they wrap around... Well. A giant, invisible lizard. That's drumming on trash cans.

Logic and caution dictate that Joe should just walk away right now. Walk away and forget about all of this. Of course, if he did that, life would be a lot more boring. Taking a deep breath, Joe makes his way towards the lit stretch of alley. If nothing else, the lizard isn't making any efforts to hide or disguise itself (well, aside from being _almost completely invisible_ ), so Joe's hoping it's pretty friendly.

He's nearly there when the door that's ajar opens the rest of the way, and Joe holds his breath as a figure steps out. It takes a minute for Joe to really make anything out; his night vision having been partially destroyed by the bright light coming from inside the building. When the spots finally clear from his vision, Joe sees that the newcomer is a guy a few years older than him, apparently human. The cable attached to the bass guitar he's carrying trails off inside, where it must be hooked into an amp, if the off-key moans produced when the guy plucks the strings are anything to go by.

Joe winces. "Dude, at least tune it first. Your friend's drumming deserves it."

It's obvious that neither the guy nor the lizard noticed Joe's approach from the discordant crash that results when the lizard falls mid-twist and the guy's hand hits the bass's strings. "Uh. Friend?" the guy says after a too-long stretch of silence and a guilty half-glance at the toppled cans. Now that the lizard's stationary, he's nearly disappeared from view, the bright designs curling around his body blending into the stained and graffitied ground. "Just me here. And, ha, you too, I guess."

"Your friend on the ground. The li— er. Well. Sorry," Joe says, addressing the lizard, "I'm not familiar with your species."

The guy gapes. "Woah, wait—you can see Andy? _No one_ can see Andy." He pauses, glances at where the lizard is likely still lying, and rolls his eyes. "Well, yeah, but I wasn't going to tell him _that_. I keep telling you, humans are weird. It's not a good idea to tell them all your secrets until you know you can trust them."

Either the alien's telepathic or this guy likes to talk to himself, Joe decides. "You think I'm going to call up the Shadow Proclamation and tell them he's here? I'm just a kid, I can't do anything like that." Which probably isn't the best thing to admit, oops. Oh well, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.

"What's the Shadow Proc— Oh. Seriously? Is it illegal or something to be on Earth? Well that's a relief, I guess." The guy pauses between sentences, and something's niggling at Joe, something he should remember, but it is escapes him when he tries to call it up, so hopefully it's not anything too important.

Then the guy tugs his strap around so the bass is against his back, spreads his legs, and folds his arms in front of his chest. "Joke's on you," he announces. "Andy says the Shadow Proclamation doesn't give a rat's ass if he's here. They mostly deal with really huge things. Intergalactic stuff."

Huh. You learn something new every day. "Okay. Anyway, hi, I'm Joe. I mean you no harm and all that jazz." Joe holds out his hand, but before the guy can take it, something else—Andy, Joe supposes—grips it and gives it a firm shake. Now that he can see the swirled patterns of color more closely, it's obvious that while they're intricate and alien, they're painted on with regular, run-of-the-mill grease paint. They're pretty fascinating, actually, almost like temporary sleeves of tattoos. Kickass.

"...you seriously aren't freaked out by the whole alien thing?" the guy asks, sounding a little miffed that he's being ignored in favor of Andy's awesome body art.

"Some anthropologists from Malcassairo lived next door to me for ages. I guess I'm kinda used to it," Joe tells him with a shrug. "What's your deal? You find Andy somewhere? He find you? I mean, you're obviously local." At least, Joe assumes he's local, from the way he talks.

"Obviously," says the guy, rolling his eyes. "I don't _look_ alien, do I? Naw, he set my backyard on fire when I was twelve. I'm Pete, by the way."

The something that was niggling Joe suddenly clicks in his head. He's _heard_ of Pete, of course he has. It's kind of hard not to when you hang around the Chicago scene the way Joe has over the past few years, tagging along after Mike. Pretty much everyone in the scene knows Pete somehow, or at least knows _of_ him. Pete's been in a few shitty little bands over the years, and while he isn't exactly the best musician, everyone agrees he's got one hell of a stage presence, and he'd probably actually go somewhere if he didn't keep getting kicked out of bands for being a bit of a nut and talking to himself all the time. Suddenly, a lot of the weirder rumors about Pete make sense to Joe. It's probably pretty hard to maintain a reputation of sanity when you're hanging out with an invisible alien that only you can hear.

"Well," Joe says slowly, rubbing the side of his nose, "you could be an alien that looks mostly human, like a Trion. Or you could be wearing a person suit. They're pretty versatile."

"Maybe, I suppose," Pete hedges. "Still, it's not as if there actually _are_ person suits that make you look human enough that anyone could really be fooled."

"Sure there are," Joe says, grinning ear to ear. "I've got one in my closet. If you can give me a lift home, I'll even let you see it." The offer is probably the stupidest thing Joe's ever done, but in the years to come, he never once regrets making it.

* * *

Patrick is proud of the fact that he's able to wait a whole day and a half before he hops on a bus for the thirty minute ride it takes to get to Bob's.

"You know," Bob says when he opens the door to find Patrick standing there, cap pulled low over his eyes, "it's been a year. Most people would've found some other, newer friends by now. Possibly in their own age group."

"Shut up," Patrick grumbles, "you know I don't make friends easily. How were finals?"

Bob rolls his eyes, but he steps outside, so he can't be _too_ pissed about Patrick's lack of social skills. Last time the subject came up, Bob shut the door in Patrick's face, after all. "They were alright. Can't wait 'til I'm done with all the gen ed requirements, though. Life science can kiss my ass, let me tell you. What's with the hat?"

Patrick shrugs and tugs the cap down again. "Got it cheap from a mail-order place on the internet. I'm trying to develop a style," he hedges. The explanation is enough, in its own way, even if it _does_ fail to mention that the online store is one run by what he suspects is probably a Vinvocci. And that the cap produces a constant layer of mental white noise around Patrick's thoughts, protecting them from unwanted psychic intrusion while (hopefully) preventing any telepaths from noticing said shield. The technology is relatively simple and primitive compared to some that Patrick's dealt with in the past, but it's still more than he can do on his own, working from scratch. Besides, the simplistic nature of the device is part of its appeal. Anything more complicated might be noticed. It's not that Patrick doesn't trust Bob, he just likes to have all his bases covered.

"You mean you're trying to hide your receding hairline," Bob teases, causing Patrick to flush and glare.

"Shut up, I don't know what you're talking about," he growls. Patrick isn't sure why he's aging so quickly or why he needs glasses now when he never did during his previous regeneration. The only explanation Patrick can think of is that when he regenerated, he accidentally absorbed some of the genetic code of the _real_ Patrick Stump, causing it to corrupt his own. Hopefully everything will be set right again when he next regenerates—it would really suck if he was stuck with a human lifespan now. "I don't see why you had to go to a college on the other side of the country," Patrick says in an effort to change the subject to something less uncomfortable for him.

"I wanted to see more of the world," Bob says, shrugging. "Not everyone is as afraid of stepping outside their front door as you are."

"I'm not afraid of stepping outside," Patrick protests. "I just don't like change."

"No, really? Fuck, you're the oldest fifteen-year-old I know."

"I'm also the only fifteen-year-old you know," Patrick counters. "Are we going to hang around on your front porch all day or can we actually go somewhere?"

" _You're_ the one who showed up out of the blue. Maybe I already have plans," Bob snipes, which gets a laugh out of Patrick. For all his big talk, Bob is nearly as antisocial as Patrick and they both know it, after all. "Fine, fine. What d'you want to do?"

Patrick thinks for a minute, then asks, "Have you got a copy of Emerson's _Invisible Man_?"

"Nope," Bob says, shaking his head.

"Great. Think you could stand going to the bookstore with me? Have to pick up my summer reading books."

When Bob says, "You don't finish the school year for another three weeks," Patrick just looks at him. Bob sighs. "How have you not skipped a grade yet?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about. As my both my regular and standardized test scores will clearly show you, I am a completely normal, average student," Patrick tells him, face perfectly straight.

"Fine, have it your way, creepy genius child."

"Still don't know what you're talking about," Patrick cheerfully tells him, grinning to himself as he trails behind Bob to his car.

Bob spends the drive to the store exposing Patrick to some of the new bands he started listening to over the past semester. Patrick spends it dissecting each song played and explaining, point-by-point, just how and why it is inferior music. "Repetition is a sign of laziness," Patrick insists as he pushes the door to the store open. "They could've finished the song two minutes in and it would've been decent, I guess. Maybe. But they didn't, so it sucks."

"Sometimes people just do it for fun, you know. And some people enjoy music because they just like the way it sounds," Bob reminds him.

"That doesn't mean they have to make substandard music," Patrick grumbles. He likes that humans aren't focused on always being the best; their imagination and innovative approach towards life are some of Patrick's favorite things about the species. At the same time, the relatively easy acceptance of failure that many humans possess feels like a slap in the face now and then, an inescapable reminder of the fact that while he can speak the language, wear the clothes, and act the part, Patrick will always be set apart and stuck on the outside.

Patrick isn't even sure if there are any other members of his species left. When he landed on Earth with Praxibetel back in the sixties, they'd still been losing the Time War and Patrick had stopped paying attention to the details years before. Earth is about as far from civilized space as you can get in this part of the universe, so the fact that Patrick still hasn't had any news on the subject nearly forty years later doesn't really mean anything.

Being who they are, Patrick's legitimate errand of buying books for school is sidetracked as soon as he and Bob enter the store, as they both go straight to the music section, eager to prove points to one another. Patrick has seriously missed having Bob around this year. "No, this one, you have to listen to this one," Patrick insists, scanning the barcode on a CD and pulling off the headphones so he can shove them at Bob. "The way it's all—"

"Oh, yeah. Wow, that's a sweet solo there," Bob agrees, nodding along with the beat. His hands twitch and Patrick grins, knowing that Bob's figuring out the rhythm in his head. "Wait, is that—" Bob starts to ask, but the demo of the song cuts off and the music switches to the next track. "Fucking sample," Bob grumbles. "I could have sworn it changed to 6/8 right at the end there."

"It did. I have this one at home, I'll lend it to you later," Patrick says, head bobbing in agreement. "The best thing it is how it's a simple chord progression, the sort of thing you learn in beginning guitar, only skewed. The way the drums start out fast and sharp disguises it some, but if you pay attention, you can't miss it," he explains earnestly. Bob opens his mouth to reply, but before he gets a chance to say anything, a kid leans across the CD rack.

"Oh, man, I thought I was the only one who appreciated that. Isn't it awesome? My friend Mike says it's a lazy trick, but the whole thing about the stuff you learn in intro guitar is that it's not just easy, it's, like, the stuff everything else is built around. You ignore that and you're only hurting yourself, right?" the kid asks excitedly. He can't be more than fifteen, sixteen tops, and Patrick keeps getting distracted from what he's saying by the way his hair bobs when he talks. Patrick nods hesitantly, unsure if he wants to risk encouraging the kid.

"Exactly!" the kid exclaims, steamrolling along. "You can ignore it, sure, but having an elitist attitude isn't gonna help you at all. You play, right? Ha, I knew it! Okay, so this is going to sound strange, but me and my friends are forming a band and we need more people and I think you'd be awesome, I mean, you've obviously got good taste in music. I'm Joe, by the way." He sticks out his hand and Patrick nervously takes, squeezes, and quickly releases it.

"Patrick," he mutters, tugging his hat down as soon as he has his hand back. It's something that's going to quickly turn into a bad habit if he isn't careful, Patrick thinks. "I'm not joining any bands unless Bob can join too," Patrick adds. He has no interest in Joe's band, but he figures that to straight-out say so would be rude of him, and besides, it's not like Joe is going to say yes to Bob as well as Patrick. People who don't know Bob always assume the worst about him. It's _great_.

Or maybe not, because Joe is grinning like an absolute fool at Bob. Wow, this has to be a first. "Sure, no problem, the more the merrier, right? So, what do you guys play?"

"Drums," Patrick snaps, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Bob plays drums, too."

Joe finally loses his cheerful look at this bit of news, frowning. "That's no good. We've already got Andy."

Patrick doesn't want to ask, but somehow he can't stop himself. "Andy?"

"Oh, dude," Joe says, lighting up again, "if you drum, you _have_ to meet Andy."

* * *

After growing up next door to the Greens, it throws Joe off when Andy and Pete don't even try to hide the fact that Andy's an alien. While Joe supposes it makes sense since Andy couldn't even attempt to pass as human until Joe gave him the human suit, the fact of the matter is that Andy is practically invisible outside the suit. No one _needs_ to know he's an alien. Privately, Joe thinks Pete and Andy just like to freak people out.

Still, even Joe has to agree that there is very little as amazing as Andy when he's drumming without the suit. Hell, even _with_ the suit on, Andy's still pretty awesome. Especially when you consider the fact that he's only been drumming with it on for the few months that Joe's known him and Pete.

"Dude," Bob says slowly when Andy finishes. "I don't think you're gonna drum in this band, Patrick." Joe beams at Bob. He has already decided that Bob is awesome incarnate, and it is entirely possible that Bob is a big part of the reason why Joe approached Patrick in the first place. Not that Patrick doesn't seem cool also—he does, Joe is sure Pete is going to love him and his dorky hat and sweater vest—Patrick just isn't Bob.

"He missed the hi-hat when he went for it," Patrick snaps, tugging on the brim of his hat. "His hand-eye coordination sucks."

"Eh, I usually hit the hi-hat with my tail," Andy says with a shrug. "Joe, you need to let me at least give this thing joints with three-hundred and sixty degree rotation abilities," he adds, grumbling and wrinkling his nose around his glasses, which Joe knows are a pair of cheap ones from the bookstore at Pete's school. Apparently Malmooth optics are different enough from whatever Andy's species is that the suit's eyes don't work properly for him. As it is, Pete and Andy were both surprised that the voice box was able to do something about the frequency of Andy's voice with minimal tinkering. Joe's just grateful that he doesn't have to depend on Pete and the fish living in Pete's head in order to talk to Andy anymore.

Patrick is frowning at them, and Joe gives him a sheepish look. "Er. Andy's an alien? He's only had the human suit for a bit over four months, so he's still getting used to it and his coordination is off," Joe tries to explain. He isn't sure how successful he is, since Patrick just frowns more and Bob is looking at Joe like Joe's crazy. Something tells Joe they won't be getting Bob for Pete's yet-to-be-named band, which is a bummer.

"There's no such thing as aliens," Bob says. "Trust me, I would know if there were."

If he didn't happen to be glancing in the right direction just then, Joe would have completely missed Patrick's frown melt into a look of intense relief, since it's replaced by a blank expression just as quickly. The reaction is a strange one and Joe isn't sure what to make of it, except that Patrick really doesn't want Bob to know about aliens, maybe. But that's silly, since Joe has learned that even with rock-solid proof, some people won't believe something if they decide they don't want to.

Still, Joe can't help but regard the surety in Bob's statement with a healthy dose of skepticism. "And I suppose you'd be the first to know if aliens landed on Earth," Joe says, just barely refraining from eying Bob with disdain.

Bob does a much better job of staring Joe down than Joe manages to do in return. It probably has something to do with the fact that Bob is, like, a _giant_ and possesses _presence_. Honestly, it's enough to send shivers down Joe's spine. Since Joe knows he has no chance of winning against that look in the next century, he feels no guilt in backing off and standing down without really putting up much of any sort of fight. "Right, okay, have it your way. So, you guys wanna join our band?"

"Well, I can't," Bob says, and Joe's heart sinks a little in his chest, because even if Bob doesn't believe Andy is an alien, Joe knows that if they had Bob in their band, they'd never have to worry about people not taking them seriously. (Joe has tried to convince Mike that he wants to join, but Mike knows Pete's reputation and doesn't want anything to do with him, tragically.) "You've already got a good drummer, and anyway, I've got to go back to college in August."

"Pete's in college and he still manages to make practice," Andy points out. It doesn't surprise Joe that Andy has no problem with more drummers joining the band; apparently there are only percussion instruments on Andy's planet. When Pete started taking him to shows and stuff, Andy was weirded out by the idea of bands that didn't just consist of drum circles.

"My school's in Florida," Bob says slowly, "time is not the issue here. Patrick could join, though. He plays half an orchestra and then some just on his own, and he's not going anywhere."

"What? No! Fuck no, Bob, I'm not joining some punk garage band," Patrick splutters, shaking his head furiously.

"Shut up, you need to get out of the house more," Bob says, clearly unfazed by the furious look Patrick is giving him. "You should get him to sing, if you can," Bob tells Joe.

" _Death_ , Bryar. I know where you live," Patrick threatens.

Joe grins. Despite Patrick's flushed and angry face, Joe is sure this is the best thing he's ever done, after going down a mostly dark alley four and a half months ago.

* * *

Joe has brought Pete an amazing present in the shape of a tiny, fashion-challenged redhead wrapped up in a protective layer of argyle. "Joe, this is officially the best thing you've ever done," Pete says after he's been introduced.

"I know," Joe says smugly. He's preening, but really, he has every right to.

"He's so tiny! I want to bundle him up and tuck him away in my pocket," Pete gushes.

"I don't think you could fit anything in your pockets, your jeans are so tight," Joe observes.

"Then, like, a lunchbox or something."

The new kid, Patrick, glares at Pete. "You're not much taller than me," he growls. "And I never said I was joining your stupid band."

Joe gapes. "You would defy the will of _Bob_?" Pete has not met this 'Bob' guy who was apparently joined to Patrick's hip when Joe found him, but he has heard tales from Joe about Bob. If Joe is to be believed, Bob is pure magic that has been molded into the shape of a boy. Much like Patrick, only clearly less magical, since Pete is pretty sure that there is very little in this world as magical as Patrick.

"Bob's just my friend, not my keeper. I don't have to do what he says," Patrick protests. "Besides," he adds, turning in Pete's direction, "you haven't even heard me play yet."

"Joe vouches for you, and I trust Joe's opinion," Pete tells him, shrugging. "Plus, I have a good feeling about you. You're what Surgically Altered Chipmunks needs, I'm sure of it."

"Surgically Altered Chipmunks?" Patrick asks, voice dripping with skepticism.

Pete waves a hand. "The name's a work in progress. Not important. What _is_ important, Pattycakes, is the music. Is the music important to you?"

Patrick blinks, anger vanishing for the moment. "Music is my _life_ ," he answers, bare and aching with the absolute truth of the words.

Grinning, Pete gathers Patrick up and pulls him close. "Then there shouldn't be any problems here. This is clearly the start of a beautiful relationship."

"If you say so," Patrick says. He sounds doubtful, but Pete isn't worried. Things have been working out just the way they're supposed to for Pete Wentz ever since he made friends with the alien that crashed in his backyard when he was twelve. There's no reason for Pete to suspect this will be any different.

* * *

Things progress smoothly for Fall Out Boy. Or, rather, things progress as smoothly as possible for a band that contains Pete Wentz. Pete is a veritable force of nature, after all, passing through in a whirlwind of chaos, tossing some things around, picking up others and taking them along for the ride. Patrick knows—he's still waiting to be flung out again. Though, to be honest, Patrick doesn't really mind Pete's inanities. Everyone's attention is drawn to Pete, despite Patrick being the one standing front and center, which is perfect. No better place to hide than in plain view, sometimes, and Patrick finds himself setting aside his worries. He wonders if maybe he's been overly paranoid all these years.

Then stuff like this happens.

Despite Andy and Pete's insistence that the world needs to know of Andy's extraterrestrial origins, no one believes them, and it's quickly become one of the myriad of crazy stories attached to the band. At least, it remains unimportant and obscure right up until the point that a group of kids manage to sneak backstage at a concert and accuse _Pete_ of all people of being an alien.

It is possible that Patrick panics. The panic doesn't last long, however, since no one is pointing fingers at him, and it's not like Fall Out Boy don't actually have an openly extraterrestrial member. Patrick redirects the kids' attentions to Andy and manages to sidestep their scrutiny, which relieves Patrick to no end because the small one is pressing at the telepathic misdirection shield built into Patrick's hat like nobody's business. The worst part is that Patrick has the sneaking suspicion that the kid doesn't even realize he's doing it, which is downright frightening. Over the years, Patrick's met his fair share of telepaths, both human and non, and he's positive none of them ever came even close to this kid in terms of sheer power.

Patrick is so distracted by the small one's telepathic abilities that he almost misses the way the chubby one is overly-protective of the skinny one. Almost, but not quite. Learning that the two are brothers, Patrick at first attributes the protective stance of Chubby to the fact that his younger brother seems to hero-worship Pete. Overprotectiveness in such a case is an understandable precaution—Sam acts much the same way around Pete, even though he's known Pete for years now and Patrick has _never_ hero-worshipped Pete.

Then Patrick tunes into what Ryan, the younger brother, is saying, and he nearly does a double-take. Humans are making scientific advances left and right all the time, and some of those humans are on the young side, but Patrick is damned sure the invention of a straight vegetable-to-fuel engine with a built in carbon conversion processor would make the seven o'clock news. That the inventor is a sixteen-year-old would only serve to make an already big story bigger. Pete and Joe may not realize just how complicated that technology is, and Andy may not realize how great a leap this is for humans, but Patrick does. Patrick does, and he knows that since the rest of the world remains ignorant of this invention, someone must be covering up for Ryan Smith big time.

Now Patrick observes Ryan's brother Spencer with new eyes. Sixteen-year-old humans normally aren't so savvy when it comes to the way the world works. It could be that Spencer is protecting Ryan's genius from being exploited. It could also be that Spencer's protecting Ryan for entirely different reasons. As Patrick watches, Spencer calmly and cleverly redirects the conversation between Ryan, Pete, Andy, and Brendon the tiny telepath, whenever Ryan starts going off on tangents. The misdirection is subtle and nearly unnoticeable, but now that he's aware of it, Patrick can't fail to notice it. This isn't something new, something Spencer is doing just for Pete. This is something Spencer has been doing for a long time now—watching Ryan, guiding his words, watching the people around Ryan. Watching Patrick watching him.

The last is a bit startling—despite his paranoia, Patrick has grown accustomed to people's eyes skipping over him. Between his family and Bob, Patrick has become much better at acting human, and as long as Patrick keeps his hat on, no one should even think of considering the possibility that he's anything other than human. Taking a deep breath, Patrick tries to calm the frantic beatings of his hearts. Spencer has no reason to suspect Patrick. He's probably staring like that for reasons completely unrelated to Patrick's extraterrestrial origins. Reassured, Patrick lets Brendon draw him into the conversation.

Creepy as Spencer is, and as unnerving as Brendon's curious telepathic probings are, Patrick makes a mental note to keep tabs on Ryan in the future. It's probably nothing, but there's something oddly familiar about the kid that sends a shiver of fear up Patrick's spine.


	4. Chapter 4

Bob Bryar has known since age ten that he's psychic. Most of the time he doesn't really even think about it, since it isn't as if he can move things with his brain or read people's minds (much). He generally just gets vague impressions, sometimes picks up the top level of someone's thoughts when he's sitting right next to them and they're thinking particularly intensely.

By the time a week has passed since he joined My Chemical Romance, Bob knows that when Mikey Way wants a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he _really wants_ a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Bob starts making them before Mikey even starts murmuring vague things about being hungry, and he finds that the general atmosphere of things greatly improves as a result. Which just proves Bob's theory that, despite not saying much, Mikey pretty much determines the mood of the rest of the band. And now, with his special pb and j powers, Bob pretty much controls the mood of the band.

Bob thinks this is pretty cool. Also, that the other guys are damned lucky he only intends to use his power for good.

Drumming all the time really isn't that different from doing sound for shows, Bob finds, except for that he gets paid more and has nicer digs on tour once the band really starts to take off. He's still getting paid to sit around and do something he loves, and he still gets to hear shows for free, so overall, he deems it to be pretty damned awesome.

And then he meets Panic! At the Disco.

Bob has met other psychics before besides Brian—it isn't as if they can hide from one another or anything. Untrained psychics tend to unintentionally pick up vague background noise from their surroundings and rebroadcast it at a higher 'volume.' Those with training have shields and don't receive or broadcast anything unless they feel like it, making them little islands of quiet in a sea of soft, white noise. In short, psychics know when there's another one nearby because they can 'hear' each other. Or can't hear, depending. Nearly all the other psychics Bob's met have had some sort of training (well, excepting the low-level empaths that tend to pop up in the audience at shows—goddamn emo kids), and Bob knows that he was on the far end of the scale when Brian stumbled across him and took him under his wing, so Brendon Urie comes as something of a shock to Bob.

Urie isn't like the emo empaths. He doesn't pick up the emotions and occasional thoughts of those around him, nothing so simple as that. No, instead Urie picks up everything— _everything_ —around him and rebroadcasts all of it, stronger and louder than Bob's ever experienced before. It's a wonder no one's called the kid on it before, really. Bob would be a lot more curious about that fact, except that right now he's fighting to differentiate his own thoughts from everything being spewed out by Urie's mind.

When he meets Urie and the other Panic! kids, Bob's in a rush as it is, trying to hurry up and finish with these kids in as little time possible, get it over with before the guys in My Chem notice Bob's not there. Bob's still new to this whole gig insofar as being a part of the actual band goes, and he really doesn't need someone finding out about this and firing him for being off his rocker and believing he's psychic.

Not that Bob expects a reaction like that—the My Chem guys are pretty accepting of oddities (Brian claims their blasé attitude towards the improbable is primarily the fault of something called a saporta, whatever the hell that is), and it isn't as if Brian would let them freak out over something like telepathy. No, Bob isn't worried so much about the others freaking out as he's worried he'll end up becoming their pet psychic if they ever find out what he can do. Fuck that, Bob'll sell Brian out to them before Bob lets Gerard Way know he can (occasionally) read people's minds.

Denying the existence of aliens on Earth is second nature to Bob by now, and he doesn't think anything of it when the Panic! boys try and bring the subject up. Patrick's friend, the little curly-haired guitarist, kept trying to talk to Bob about aliens during Warped a couple months back and Wentz has been claiming for years that Fall Out Boy's drummer is some sort of giant lizard. Bob seriously does not get this obsession the people he encounters have with aliens. Though, okay. He supposes he should be grateful for a change of pace—or, rather, a change of topic from horror movies to science fiction. After all, aliens are at least _possible_ , in a theoretical sense. Much more so than vampires, zombies, and werewolves.

That's what Bob is telling himself three months later when he's hunkered down behind a planter, praying that whatever is out there sucking the vital fluids out of the prone body—corpse?—of a salesgirl hasn't seen him. He thought the guy bent over the girl was human at first, until Bob saw the straw clenched in the guy's hand and lips and the way the girl started to shrivel up as he sucked. No human should be capable of doing that with a straw. Or at least that's what Bob hopes, because the world is a supremely fucked up place if humans _are_ able to do freaky shit like that.

Anyway, aliens.

Aliens are definitely preferable to vampires, in Bob's book. Vampires require stakes, holy water, crucifixes, axes... They can turn into bats or wolves or mist, have superhuman strength, possess psychic powers, aren't reflected in mirrored surfaces like normal people, and they apparently sometimes sparkle in the sun, if Bob's cousin Cindy is to be believed. Bob's hoping aliens have to follow the same laws of physics the rest of the universe cleaves to, otherwise he doesn't stand a chance against this thing.

Bob's brain finally catches up to his thoughts and everything just stutters to a standstill in his head for a moment as he realizes the exact implications of his last thought. Fuck, he did _not_ just decide that he's taking this thing on. He must be insane—only someone mentally unstable would even think of considering taking on a thing ( _alien!_ he forces his mind to say) that can puncture the jugular of an adult woman with a _plastic straw_. Take on an alien like that with no weapons, no backup, no _anything_. If Bob does this, he's practically certifiable. Of course, there are those who would insist he lost his mind when he started hearing voices in his head, so maybe sanity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The... alien has finished feeding and now rises to his feet, causing Bob to instinctively hunker down more in his hiding place, hoping he's managed to avoid all notice. Sure, the thing is probably full after gorging himself (itself?) on the salesgirl's blood, but Bob's betting it probably wouldn't take kindly to being observed. He holds his breath as he watches the alien drag the body over to one of the circular clothing racks that cling to the edges of the Housewares department, shoving it in between the pairs of fifty percent-off slacks hanging there. Bob shudders; he remembers how he used to delight in hiding in the center of those things when he was little. If the body doesn't start to smell—and it might not, all the liquid's been drained out of it and isn't that how mummies are made?—some poor kid is going to end up traumatized for life.

Bob keeps holding his breath until the alien's disappeared down the escalator. Even then, he doesn't come out from his hiding place for several minutes more. When he does, he just stands there, trying to process, to figure out where to go from here, what to do next. He's completely out of his league here, it's a fucking blood-sucking _alien_ and Bob's just one weaponless telepath. Not that a weapon would do him much good right now, since he's pretty sure that even if he had one, he wouldn't be able to use it. Much as he hates to admit it, what Bob really needs right now is some advice.

He digs his phone out of his pocket and scrolls through the contacts until he finds the one he's looking for, a number he added on a whim and never thought he'd use. "Urie," he greets when someone picks up on the other end of the line. "This is Bryar. We met a few months ago? I taught you how to shield your damned brain."

"...Bob?" Urie says cautiously, voice harsh and soft at the same time, like he's trying to whisper. "I'm kinda in the middle of English." Huh. Somehow Bob managed to forget that the Panic! kids are still in in high school.

"Tough," Bob growls. "I just saw a guy drain all the blood out of some chick with a _straw_. You're gonna help me with this or else, Urie—this is your fault, you and your little band of weirdo alien fighters." Seriously, Bob's never had this kind of problem before, and he's been dealing with Patrick's titchy little friends babbling on and on about aliens for _years_.

"You can't wait, like, twenty minutes? School's out then, and—" Urie tries, but Bob is having none of that. These Vegas kids need to take responsibility for turning Bob's world on its head like this.

"I could be _dead_ in twenty minutes."

"Okay, let me just—" There's a lot of muffled thumping in between indistinct sounds of people talking. A few minutes pass, then it quiets down again.

"Yo, Bryar," greets a new voice on the phone. Bob thinks it might be one of the other guys from Urie's baby band, though he's not sure which. "Brendon couldn't get out of class, but I convinced Mr. Todd I was about to puke all over Shakespeare's collected works," possibly-a-Smith says. "What's the problem? Brendon didn't say."

Bob starts to explain what happened a second time, and as soon as he mentions the straw, the kid, who's identified himself Brent, one of the non-Smiths, snaps that up and starts yattering away. "Alright," Brent says, "so realize I'm not exactly an expert—that's Spencer, his aunt knows all this stuff, or something—but it sounds a lot like this lady who was taking out PTA moms around here last spring. Called herself a plasmavore, would drink all the blood and, like, change her internal physiology to incorporate it. _Very_ cool."

If this is meant to be reassuring, it really isn't helping any. Bob remembers the horror stories his mom used to tell him after PTA meetings when he was younger. Anything that can take down a PTA mom and live to tell the tale is way, way out of Bob's league, he's sure. Still, best to not let the kid know. "Great, okay. How'd you kill it?"

"Oh, we didn't. The Mrs. Smith ran her over with the minivan. I only know about it because we had to spend Saturday hammering the dings out of her bumper. Seriously, Ryan has _got_ to stop drag racing his mom. She always wins," Brent says.

Bob can't help himself, he groans. "Fuck, that does _not_ help me, kid. If I run someone over with my car, _I'll_ be the the one in deep shit with the law. _And_ my car'll probably get totaled." His car might be faster than a minivan, but it's also more compact, and Bob doubts it could survive a close encounter of the alien kind. Plus, that would only work if he could get the guy—alien, plasmavore, whatever—somewhere Bob can drive his car, which doesn't seem likely.

"No, see, that's the great thing," Brent says excitedly. "Plasmavores are humanoid. The only part of themselves they can change is their inside, and they're limited to mimicking and feeding on species that are structurally very similar to them. Pretty much anything that can kill a human will kill a plasmavore, and they generally travel alone. They're really only dangerous if they have some kind of uber-weapon."

"If you're trying to reassure me, you're doing a shitty job of it," Bob snaps. Sure, it's nice to know he won't end up facing a ten-foot-tall tentacle monster or something, but the prospect of being on the wrong end of some freaky alien weapon really isn't any better in Bob's mind. "Aren't there any kind of authorities I can call?" he asks hopefully.

Brent makes a thoughtful noise. "What, you mean like UNIT? Man, you don't want to deal with _them_. They only care if, like, the fate of the entire world is at stake. Or a big chunk of the population. Plus, their website sucks balls and you have to hack it just to find their phone number. Which I have no idea how to do—that's more Ryan's thing."

"What if this guy—thing—plasmavore has one of those uber weapons you mentioned? That counts as a threat to the fate of the world, right?" Bob tries as he makes his way over to the escalator. Enough time has passed that he figures it's probably safe to head down now. Maybe he'll get really lucky and see the alien from the top.

"What, like a plasma cannon or a death ray or something? Depends on the size and location of the ray. If it's small and doesn't have much fire power, I don't think they'll care. Sure, they're all, 'Oh, we'll take care of any threat,' on their site, but when it comes down to it, UNIT only really care if the death ray's _huge_ , and, I dunno, on the moon," Brent says. He hesitates for a moment, then asks, "Is it on the moon? Because that would be kind of out-of-character for a plasmavore. They're mostly small-time criminals, according to the Smiths' aunt."

Death rays. In placing extraterrestrial beings as better than supernatural ones, Bob forgot to factor in the possibility of fucking _death rays_. Of course, it's not like he could have expected to take them into account since, well, they're death rays. Not exactly something one expects to encounter in one's daily life. "If there's anything on the moon, I don't know about it," Bob says, pulling himself back to the matter at hand. "All I know is what I saw and I already told you that. Do I really have to hit it with a car? Something tells me that I'm not going to get away with that in broad daylight."

"Well, there are other ways to cause massive trauma. Like, a lead pipe or something. We just tend to default to car because that's what we have handy," the kid explains, which is entirely unhelpful in Bob's mind. "Though Ryan built this awesome phone last week that shoots lasers and has unlimited minutes... he could probably walk you through on how to make one, if you want. Only problem is he's on the other side of town and stuck in math class for another fifteen minutes." 

Brent rambles on and Bob would be willing to grit his teeth and wait those fifteen minutes, but it's already been that long or longer since he last saw the alien. Normally, Bob can barely 'hear' anything mentally unless there's another telepath in the vicinity, but right now his nerves are so on edge that he seems to be picking up a little of everything in the whole mall, strange as it seems. Among the mundane thoughts about what color sandal to buy and whether deep-fat-fried zucchini violates one's diet regime, the hungry, aching desire for _blood_ is hard to miss.

When Bob reaches the bottom of the escalator, it only takes him a minute to zero in on the alien. The thing's advancing on a young mother, making cooing noises at the woman's child and reaching to pick the toddler up. The entire scene is completely at odds with the running stream of predatory anticipation the creature is all but shouting into Bob's head.

Bob doesn't even think as he starts jogging towards them, picking up speed as he goes. He can vaguely hear the tinny sound of Brent demanding an explanation for his silence from the half-forgotten phone in his hand. Shoving the phone in his pocket slides it shut, ending the call and cutting off the kid's voice. Unfortunately, it also means Bob doesn't have that hand out and available to steady himself when he trips in his hurry and starts to tip forward. Bob manages to shout out a warning, and the woman catches up her kid just in time, but the alien isn't as lucky, or at least not as fast. When he sees Bob falling towards him, the alien stumbles backwards. Right off the top of the down escalator he'd been standing in front of.

Brent, it seems, was right about this thing being pretty much built like humans on the inside. Few people could survive a fall like that one, particularly if their heads landed smack-dab on the toothed edge of an escalator step like this one's did. Swallowing hard, Bob tries to tear his gaze away from the gore down below. People are starting to gather around the bloody mess and Bob knows it's only a matter of time before he'll have to answer the questions of a security guard or police officer or someone. For now, though, he's still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he just (accidentally-intentionally) killed another living thing. Sure, the alien started it, but even that thought does little to dampen the queasy feeling settling in Bob's stomach. And the Vegas kids do this all the time? Fuck. Maybe the media is right and the younger generation _is_ becoming completely desensitized to violence as a result of horror movies and gruesome video games.

* * *

He should have left a note.

Not that it really matters now, Bob reflects, but a note would have been the responsible thing to do. Might even have convinced the guys that he's okay and there's no need to panic. Now he's going to have to try and give Brian a mental poke and hope it works because crazy, vampiric aliens broadcasting psychic waves of bloodlust make it really hard to remember to grab your phone on the way out the door. Of course, the stupid international plan _still_ isn't working right for Bob, so the phone wouldn't be much help here either, but yeah. Except for how if Bob had his phone he'd have maps and he wouldn't be completely lost right now in addition to having no fucking clue as to how he's going to take down the alien on the other side of door now that he's finally tracked the bloodlust back to its source.

Bob dithers for too long because the next thing he knows the door of the ridiculously fancy house bursts open and a whole crowd of people spill out onto the porch and steps. He's learned a thing or two since his first alien encounter with the plasmavore, so Bob's first reaction is to jump out of the way and into the bushes next to the porch. It's a prickly landing, but past experience has taught Bob he really doesn't want to be in the thick of things when there's a mixed group of both humans and aliens squabbling away, such as is the case here.

From his spot in the bushes, Bob casts his mind out over the entire lot of them, poking and prodding. As he does so, the mass resolves into individuals and, as soon becomes apparent, something of a quandary—the people on the porch are no longer the ones that exited the house moments before. Or, rather, at least one face is missing and another is duplicated, so Bob's guessing the alien must have some kind of shapeshifting ability. Either way, there are now two identical-looking dark-haired women, each insisting that _she_ is the real one and the other the alien.

Interesting as it is that this group is aware of aliens, Bob is more concerned about the pseudo-guns being waved around and decides to take matters into his own hands.

A brief touch of minds is all Bob needs to determine who's who, and then it's just a matter of grabbing the ankles of the woman with blood on her mind and pulling her legs out from under her. That she hits her chin on the edge of the porch on the way down is just icing on the cake, particularly since the knock serves to rattle her enough that Bob can wrestle her onto the sidewalk and twist her arms behind her back.

"So, uh. Really hoping this thing doesn't have poisonous skin or deadly straw-fu," Bob says as casually as he can, glancing up at the group on the porch. "And before you ask, yes, I'm sure I've got the alien and not your friend. Non-human minds feel different from human ones."

"Straw-fu?" one of the men asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Plasmavore, probably," says the other man, this one with an American accent. His face brightens when he sees Bob, a smile breaking across it. "Bob, my man! Why, I haven't seen you since that whole thing with the Saturnynians trying to open a water garden back in, what was it? 2004? It's been ages, how've you been?"

"What." A light touch is enough to tell Bob this guy is null when it comes to psychic abilities, so the real question here is why the hell some random stranger is pretending to know him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Retcon?" the first man asks the American, who nods.

"Couple times now. Bob here is psychic and for some reason has the uncanny ability to sniff out vampiric aliens."

Bob narrows his eyes—he's spent enough time around Gerard now to have a general understanding of certain terms, _retcon_ among them. "Is this some sort of stupid-ass Men In Black memory-wipe thing?" he demands. "Because I hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of people around who already know there are aliens on Earth."

"Yes," the American admits, "but it's easier to keep something secret when only a handful of people know about it and you maintain some control over who those people are."

This earns a derisive snort from Bob. "Like the teens in Vegas who are running aliens down with minivans when they're not adopting them? Yeah, I can see you're doing a real good job limiting it to only responsible people."

"Jack?" The American's friends are starting to look more than a little unsure about the situation and Bob doesn't think it's because the shapeshifter he's kneeling on is starting to try and shift its way free. Still, just to be on the safe side, Bob digs his knee a little deeper into the alien's back.

"There _is_ another Rift in Las Vegas," the American—Jack, it would seem—says thoughtfully. "Skuttlebutt has it that someone's been keeping it under control lately. Teenagers, y'say? Well, I guess if you're getting it from an outside party we can dispense with the Retcon this time around." Suddenly he's all smiles again, leaping down off the porch to offer Bob a hand to shake. "Great to meet you again, I'm Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood 3, and this is my team. Team, this is Bob—psychic, freelance alien-puncher, and, if I remember my 21st-century history correctly, rock star."

Bob ignores the proffered hand, choosing to instead narrow his eyes in suspicion. "What the hell is Torchwood 3?"

"Cardiff branch of Torchwood. We basically do the same thing your Vegas friends do—running down bad aliens, helping good ones—except in Cardiff," Jack says. "Speaking of, in answer to your earlier question, no, no poisonous skin. Well, probably not. Suzy here thought it was a Zygon—they have stings on their hands, so watch out if you find one of them—but what you've got there looks more like a Gwanzulum, only pinker."

"My people share a star with the Gwanzulscum," growls the creature under Bob. It's lost its feminine curves and is decidedly rounder now, possessing a mouth full of nasty-looking teeth. "But we are far superior! We—" Bob bashes its head with a convenient potted plant before it get its monologue on.

"You didn't have to do that," the woman the alien duplicated says. "Any head trauma severe enough to knock someone out has the potential to cause permanent brain damage."

Bob shoots her a look, not even trying to hide his disbelief. "It was planning to kill and replace you, then suck the life out of your friends."

"What did I say?" Jack says cheerfully. "Bob can track a vampiric alien from ten klicks away. It's a talent."

* * *

The music is too loud and Joe is about ready to call it quits and blow this joint when he spots a familiar blond head slipping out a door near the back of the club. Downing the last of his beer, Joe sets the bottle on a nearby table and sets off through the crowd, navigating the mass of bodies as fast as he can, which isn't saying much. By the time he manages to open the door and stick his head out, Joe expects Bob to be long gone, because that's just how Joe's luck tends to go when it comes to Bob Bryar. Which is seriously tragic, seeing as how Bob is magic and all.

Apparently the universe has decided to take pity on Joe for once, since Bob is still in the alley behind the club when Joe peeks out. Well, take pity or crush Joe's dreams, it seems, since while Bob is still in the alley, he's also pinned against the wall by a svelte redhead, which, seriously, _not_ cool to get Joe's hopes up like that, universe. He's about to duck back into the club and give Bob some privacy because Joe is classy like that, when Joe notices several things in quick succession.

Item one: Bob and the redhead aren't the only ones in the alley, there's also a... Well, Joe wants to call it a husk, but it's still human-shaped enough that, going by the clothes, Joe's guessing the thing at the redhead's feet might've been some eyeliner-wearing scene kid, once upon a time. Point B: Instead of looking happy about the (rather busty) redhead's attentions, Bob is as pissed off as Joe has ever seen him, and Joe has seen Bob be reduced to Frank Iero's jungle gym, so this is definitely saying something. Plus, Bob is (quite literally) looking pretty blue about the whole thing, which is likely related to sub-point iii: The redhead has Bob pinned to the wall by his throat and about a foot off the ground, which, okay. Joe may not know Bob as well as Patrick does, but he's pretty sure Bob doesn't go for that kind of kinky stuff. Joe thinks, at least.

"Hey!" Joe shouts, coming out of the building the rest of the way and waving his phone in the air. "You better let him go! I'm calling the fucking cops!" No one is going to choke the air out of Bob and possibly turn him into a desiccated corpse on Joe's watch, dammit.

The redhead glances in Joe's direction and apparently that's just the kind of distraction Bob needs, since he takes advantage of the moment to kick her in the stomach hard enough that she drops him. Bob scrambles to recover himself and Joe's thinking maybe he should have called the cops _before_ drawing attention to himself, because fuck, what if this chick goes after _Joe_ now? Joe's band probably would _not_ be down with Joe dying an unintentional death. If nothing else, Patrick would never forgive him. There are few things (well, not really, but) in this world that Joe truly fears, but one of those things is the wrath of Patrick Stump.

Thankfully, the redhead decides to make a break for it while Joe hesitates and Bob's still gasping for breath. Probably Joe should try and stop her, but Joe doubts that would be a good idea, particularly since the redhead's already proven too much for Bob to handle. Bob is tough, Joe doesn't want to even _try_ tangling with someone who apparently overpowered Bob with ease.

Once the redhead's gone, Joe makes his way over to where Bob is sprawled on the dirty asphalt of the alley. Close up, the husk looks even more human, and very similar to the mummies Joe saw in the museum's exhibit on Ancient Egypt when he was a kid. "Hey. Hey, Bob, you okay?" Joe asks as he crouches down and helps Bob sit up.

Bob squints at Joe between coughs. "Thanks," he rumbles. What Bob says next makes Joe's heart sink. You know, just a bit. "Do I know you?"

Joe struggles valiantly to keep the hurt he feels from showing on his face, though he can't help the slight grimace that briefly escapes. "Um, yeah? I'm Joe? Patrick's friend?" And bandmate, which Bob should totally _know_ , seeing as how he was _there_ when Joe met Patrick and recruited him. Plus, there was Warped both last year and this year. Sure, Warped is Warped and all, but Joe had hoped Bob'd finally learned who Joe was between Patrick and the whole weird Pete-and-Mikey-Way-bonding thing. Apparently not.

"Oh, right," Bob says, still frowning. "You cut your hair," he adds, reaching out to tug on one of Joe's curls.

Wow, that is... pretty cool, actually. Bob has never been this tactile with Joe before; this is without a doubt the highlight of Joe's week. 

"Pete was dicking around and got gum in it," Joe says, trying to shrug it off like it was nothing, like he hasn't just totally forgiven Pete after swearing he never would, since thanks to Pete, Bob is now touching Joe's hair. _Awesome._

"Fucking Wentz," Bob growls, glaring over Joe's shoulder. He seems genuinely angry on behalf of Joe's hair, which is pretty sweet and cool.

"So, uh, not to be nosy or anything," Joe says, forcing himself to drag his attention back to important, not-Bob things, "but what's with the redhead and the mummy-thing?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bob says, his face closing up.

"Dude, the chick was trying to _kill_ you," Joe points out. "And I am, like, ninety percent sure that's a human body over there. Ex-human body."

Bob just stares at Joe, face blank.

"Was the redhead, like, I dunno, a vampire or something?" Bob has to give Joe _something_ here, this is way too weird for him to keep it all to himself.

"What? Fuck, no—vampires aren't real," Bob snaps, looking positively offended by the very idea.

Joe would argue with that, but he supposes that if anyone should know about whether vampires exist or not it's a member of My Chemical Romance, so he'll give Bob this one. "Alien, then? I mean, I always heard it's hard to get to Earth, but Andy says it's actually pretty easy, and I guess if anyone would know, it's him," Joe considers.

Bob's eyes widen in surprise for a second, though they quickly return to normal. "Right," Bob sighs, "the Vegas kids claim your drummer's an alien."

"Hey, wait. Dude. I told you that when you _met_ Andy," Joe protests, mildly affronted that Bob will believe some kids over Joe. Though, come to think of it... "You know the Panic! boys?" Man, talk about coincidence. Maybe the Panic! babies go around accusing every band that comes through Las Vegas of harboring aliens. "This is awesome. D'you have the number of any of them? I bet they know what the hell that chick was, they seem to find a lot of different species." Joe likes the Panic! boys and thinks it's pretty amazing that they're kicking alien butt and are only just out of high school.

"Panic boys?" Bob asks slowly, giving Joe an odd look as he grabs the wall and pulls himself to his feet, swaying slightly.

"Yeah, Panic! At the Tango, or something like that. They're like... this Vegas baby band that invents awesome shit and fights aliens? Neat kids—they thought Pete was an alien and were all ready to take us on, like... a year ago or something," Joe says enthusiastically, springing to his feet so he can help steady Bob.

"Do they... all kind of look the same? Uh, dark hair, kinda girly?" Bob frowns. "You know their keyboardist's psychic?" he adds as he makes his way over to the husk and nudges it with the toe of his shoe.

"Like you? Yeah, I figure he got some wires crossed or something and that's why they went after Pete instead of Andy. Anyway, are you going to call them? Or should I do it? Because I dunno about you, and I may've not met many aliens in my time, but no way is a mummy-making murderer something I can just let run around on its own. Not in good conscience, at least."

Bob groans and rubs his face. "I'll take care of it. Just... Get the hell out of here already, alright?"

"Like you were taking care of it before? Haha, yeah, no," Joe says flatly. Asphyxiated Bobs are never okay in Joe's book. Unless they're, like, evil goatee-wearing Bobs from alternate universes. Or the Bob who works at the record store on Milwaukee and who refuses to sell Joe vinyl on the principle that Joe won't know how to take care of it properly. Joe hates that Bob with a passion. He is Joe's nemesis, or something. "Patrick will so kick my ass if I let you get yourself killed," Joe adds, because Bob doesn't need to know about how much Joe fangirls him. _Really_ doesn't need to know.

"I'm not going to—" Bob starts to say, but Joe's crossed arms and firm stance are forces to be reckoned with (or so Joe's little brother Benji claims), and Bob breaks off with a sigh. "Fine. You can tag along, but if you get in the way, I'm not saving you," he growls before turning to the husk and crouching down to examine it.

Once Bob's back is turned, Joe fistpumps the air. Discreetly, of course.

"I don't know why you bother waiting if you're going to broadcast what you're doing to everyone in a one-hundred-foot radius," Bob grumps, pulling out his phone and snapping a few pictures of the corpse.

"Mental eavesdropping is cheating," Joe sniffs as he comes over to stand next to Bob. This close, Joe can see that not all the black on the husk is tight shirt and skinny jeans. The body is wrapped in some sort of tacky, black substance, like a fly trapped by a spider if a spider's spinnerets produced tar instead of webbing. It's hard and tough when Joe nudges it with the toe of his sneaker. Something tells Joe that even if the body didn't have all its innards sucked out, he still wouldn't be able to feel any softness, the black gunk is so stiff. "If she can make stuff like this, why was she bothering to choke you?" Joe asks.

Bob shrugs. "I was fucking with her head so she couldn't concentrate well enough to try anything fancy."

"Woah, you can actually control people? Freaky-scary, man." Joe, it has to be said, is as much impressed as he is frightened. He did not know Bob could do that.

"Well, it's more like shoving the Batman theme at someone until they can't remember what they were doing," Bob admits, looking a little embarrassed. Joe can't think of why that might be—dude hangs out with Gerard Way, after all. Using the Batman theme to fight bad guys is probably one of the more mundane entries on the laundry list of bad habits Bob's picked up over the years. "Have you got a plastic bag or something? I want a sample of this stuff, but I don't want to touch it and I need something to put it in once I've got it."

"What, d'you have a miniature science lab in your apartment or something?" Joe asks as he pats himself down and starts emptying his pockets.

"I know a guy," Bob says. "He's in Wales, so the turnaround time is a bitch when I want fast results, but he knows what he's doing and it's better than nothing." Bob pulls out a pocket knife and unfolds a wicked-looking blade from it. Careful not to let the husk or its odd wrapping touch his skin, Bob slowly shaves off a sliver of the black stuff so that it falls into an empty TicTac container that Joe's just emptied onto the ground from his pocket.

"That's pretty far," Joe says doubtfully. "Can't you ask Panic! or, uh, UNIT?" Joe himself has a less than stellar opinion of UNIT, what with how they always seem to show up late to an alien crisis, but hey, UNIT are technically the ones who are supposed to take care of stuff like this, right? Plus, they have cool hats. It may be Patrick's influence, but Joe feels you can learn a lot about a person from the kind of hat they choose to wear.

Straightening, Bob grimaces and shakes his head. "The Vegas kids are minors with no sense of discretion, and UNIT would probably try to make a weapon out of the damned thing. Or start a war while neutralizing it."

Joe's pretty sure Panic! are all over eighteen, but hey, maybe Bob knows more than Joe. He _is_ a telepath, after all. "And you're not going to start a war because...?"

"Because I'm an individual, not an militant, international, government agency. Also, I can understand the alien."

"Dude, I'm pretty sure UNIT has, like, translation devices."

"Yeah, but do they ever use them?"

"Huh. Point." Still, not exactly the best point, since the same could be said of Bob and his psychicness, what with how Bob was shoving Batman at the redhead instead of trying to talk to her.

"Hey. I wouldn't," Bob protests, frowning.

Joe raises an eyebrow and gives Bob a suitably skeptical look. If Bob was really trying to communicate with the redhead earlier, he probably wouldn't've ended up pinned to the wall. Bob may be big on glaring and nasty looks, but Joe knows he is actually a big teddy bear on the inside. Like Patrick, only not quite as angry all the time. Which would be why Bob is so awesome.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Joe asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Let's go kick some alien butt."

* * *

Fall Out Boy are touring Australia when a black van pulls up next to them on the street and a bunch of military-type people pile out, toss a net over Andy, and yank him him into the van. All the soldier dudes crowd right back in again and the van peels out of there, leaving Pete in the proverbial dust with his mouth hanging open. He isn't sure what happened besides the basic fact that _Andy's just been kidnapped_. Which honestly makes no sense at all because they haven't even been in the country long enough for Andy to've pissed off the local authorities yet—it usually takes them at least a week to track Andy's escapades back to him, so as far as Pete's concerned this is seriously out of the blue. Plus, it's generally police that show up for Andy, except for that one time with the very confused (and possibly time-traveling?) Secret Service agents in South Dakota.

Since the whole thing smacks of _odd_ (plus, Andy's now loose in the southern hemisphere sans chaperone), Pete decides the only thing he can possibly do is consult an expert. He digs out his phone and makes the call.

"What's up?" Joe asks on the other end of the line.

"Some dudes in uniforms just pulled Andy into a nondescript black van and drove off."

"That's weird. We only just got here," Joe says, because he is just as well-acquainted with the ways of the Andy as Pete after all this time.

"Yeah. Plus, they didn't look like cops. And they used a net to get him." Cops are usually polite enough to pull a guy over and at least make a pretense of reading him rights. Pete isn't an expert on the matter, but the last time he checked Aussies did that kind of thing too. They aren't a police state. He thinks.

Joe makes a thoughtful noise, no doubt running through all the crazy adventures he's had and trying to spot parallels. "Probably not Secret Service this time—does Australia even have a Secret Service-type agency?"

"No idea. These guys looked military, if that helps? Fatigues and red berets," Pete offers.

"Oh, geez," Joe groans. "It figures."

"Huh? What's wrong? D'you know who these guys are?"

"Yeah. Andy's finally gotten himself picked up by UNIT, looks like," Joe says.

Now Pete understands the groan. UNIT—United Nations Intelligence Taskforce—is one of the many organizations tasked with defending the human race from aliens and similar threats, according to what Joe's told him in the past. "I thought they mainly focused on England."

"Technically, they're run by the U.N.," Joe reminds him. "And either way Australia _is_ a part of the Commonwealth, so there's that. Okay, I'm gonna call Bob and see if his contact in Wales can help us with this. You may as well come back to the hotel; there's nothing you can do until we get more info."

By the time Pete gets back, Joe and Patrick have broken out their laptops and put together a sort of make-shift command center in their room. Joe is on the phone, relaying information while Patrick is doing... something on a computer. It's entirely possible Patrick is hacking the U.N. website—Patrick's never shown any great degree of computer-savvy before, but Pete wouldn't put it past him to be a secret tech genius. Patrick has all sorts of talents and connections that only ever come to light when needed, after all. Like that time when Pete grew soul-sucking wings and Patrick called in Bob Bryar, who is apparently psychic? Who knew.

"Okay, now type in 'buffalo.' B-U-F—"

"I know how to spell buffalo, Joe," Patrick says, rolling his eyes. "All lowercase?"

"Yeah. Hey, Pete." Joe beams at him and waves. "Bob's contact in Wales hooked us up with a guy who knows how to get into the UNIT website. We're trying to track down the location of the Sydney office right now."

"Can't they run a backtrace and arrest all of us for breaking into their top-secret stuff?" Pete isn't 100% sure how this kind of thing works, but he's watched his share of crime dramas and he saw _Sneakers_ when it came out. "Aren't you supposed to use a secured line and, uh. Firewalls?"

"They already know they've pissed us off, there's no point in trying to be stealthy," Patrick says. "Right now we want to know where they are. If they come after us, that just makes our job easier."

"Plus, it's not like UNIT is all that great at maintaining security—Bob's contact says this particular login's been compromised for years but UNIT is too lazy to change the password and fix it." Joe ends his call and leans on the back of Patrick's chair, reading over his shoulder. "Click that link there, that should—excellent, perfect."

"Found the address?" Pete asks, grabbing his backpack and throwing in various useful items—water bottle, flashlight, pocket knife.

"Even better," Patrick says, his smile sharp and dangerous. "We've got it on Google Maps."

It turns out to be a bit more complicated than that, since they have to give the security types the slip while keeping it on the downlow that they've misplaced Andy. Luckily, the day's already been set aside for jet-lag recovery, so they don't have to worry about ducking any official obligations. Still, they're out of the hotel and half-way across the city less than thirty minutes later, so they're making good time, all things considered. Pete isn't completely reassured, however.

"Guys," Pete says, clinging to the oh shit handle as Patrick takes another corner on—Pete swears—two wheels, "I'm not completely reassured. This whole thing was way too easy."

Joe just rolls his eyes. It's easy for him to stay unconcerned; he's been spending so much time with Bob and My Chemical Romance lately that this probably seems totally normal to him. "Bob's contact is way legit. He's got _connections_."

"Yeah, but how are we supposed to storm a paramilitary organization with just a flashlight and your admittedly awesome hair?" Pete wants to know.

"They're a branch of the U.N.," Joe says as Patrick takes the car flying straight through an intersection with absolutely zero regard for the traffic circle painted on the pavement. "Not a paramilitary group. We'll use diplomacy."

Which is how they end up sitting in the world's most uncomfortable waiting room while Joe tries to convince the receptionist that it'll be worth her while to let them see the head para-whatever-diplomat. Patrick keeps getting up to pace, pausing occasionally to stare out the windows. "I don't like this. Maybe I should stay in the car. Just in case."

"Relax, Pattycake. They aren't gonna be interested in you. Just aliens and other weird shit, Joe said." Pete leans over and pats Patrick's hand, beaming at him.

Patrick stiffens, then steps up beside Joe. "Look, we just want our friend back. Who do we need to talk to for that to happen?" he demands, slamming his hands down on the counter.

The receptionist startles, jumping back slightly in her chair and spluttering indignantly. "Sir, I really must ask you to—"

"Wait another hour for no good reason while your bosses lounge about feeling all high and mighty just because they apprehended one of the most peaceful people I know?"

"Well," Pete starts to say, because Andy isn't _that_ peaceful. The guy was kicked off his own planet for being a political radical, after all. Sure, the majority of Andy's species leans super-ultra-conservative on everything, but still.

"Shut up, Pete," Patrick snaps, and Pete shuts it because he's conditioned to do whatever Patrick says when he gets like this.

A door in the wall opposite them opens to reveal a bland-looking man peering over the top of his glasses. "Ah, gentlemen. Would one of you be a Mr. Pete Wentz?"

Pete's on his feet in a flash. "That's me. Can we see Andy now? This is all a big mistake, honest. Andy's not any kind of threat to Earth or the human race," he explains as the man gestures Pete through the door. Patrick and Joe fall into step behind Pete as he follows the man deeper into the facility.

"Pete's right," Joe says. "Andy's not any kind of threat. He came here looking for asylum since his people don't believe in basic rights like free speech." Which Pete guesses is sort of the truth, even though Andy's views are considered dangerously radical on his home planet because of huge, carnivorous terrorbeasts, not political upheaval. Plus, Pete's not entirely sure freedom of speech is something the Commonwealth does (he thinks not—wasn't that something the colonists got all up in arms about? Whatever, 10th-grade history was a long time ago), and even if it is, does something like that even matter to UNIT, what with it being a UN operation and all?

"UNIT is not in the habit of allowing extraterrestrial lifeforms to wander wherever they like on Earth," the suit says stiffly. He pushes a nondescript door open and ushers them into a room where Andy is sitting at a table, twiddling his thumbs. The nonchalant boredom is a total act, because Andy's not in his human suit and Pete knows Andy reverts back to his native gestures and habits pretty quickly when he's out of the suit. Particularly the habit of blending in with everything.

Andy turns a happy canary yellow as soon as he sees them, and he flicks his tail at Pete in greeting. Pete grins back, kicking a leg out—the closest he can get to what's effectively a Zebraxian wave.

"Dude, I _told_ you filling out change-of-address forms is serious business when you switch your planet of residence," Pete jokes, quickly checking Andy over before snagging one of the empty chairs next to him. It looks like Andy's all in one piece, but who knows what UNIT might've done to the human suit.

"Earth doesn't have a central governing body. I didn't think it was that big a deal," Andy says, little sunbursts of goldenrod exploding across his hide as he starts to relax enough to joke. Pete laughs and shares with the others, since lack of human suit means Andy can't vocalize at levels audible to human ears.

"Exactly," Joe says with a sharp nod of his head. "There're no laws against aliens—outer space ones, I mean—so you don't have any reason to detain Andy," he tells the man in the suit.

Pete has no idea if this is true, but out of the four of them, Joe's the one who would know. Between what he's gleaned from Bob and what he learned from the people he got Andy's human suit from, Joe knows a scary amount of interstellar law.

"Illegal aliens—" the suit starts to say, only for Patrick to interrupt him with a loud snort.

"Pulling the illegal alien card is complete bullshit and you know it. There's no _legal_ way for an extraterrestrial to live on Earth; it's not like Andy _could_ file paperwork. He's not hurting anyone, he's not a threat to anything, and he's a contributing member of human society. I haven't had a chance to do much in-depth research, but from what I found in your files," and here Patrick waves his phone, the secure UNIT site clearly visible on the screen, "UNIT's made at least one exception for an alien friendly in the past. There's no reason why you can't do the same now."

"That was a very specific situation involving a very unique individual," the suit splutters. "You shouldn't even be able to _access_ those files, let alone—"

Patrick rolls his eyes and steamrolls ahead. "So Andy isn't saving the planet every other week—that doesn't mean he has any less of a right to a peaceful life than the next guy."

"Ah. Well, that is—"

"Who _are_ you talking about?" Andy asks, not that Patrick can hear him.

Pete shrugs and relays the message. "Andy wants to know what alien UNIT's in bed with."

"Someone who I know for a fact was a criminal and _persona non grata_ on his own planet," Patrick says, smirking. "There's some _really_ interesting stuff on this site once you get past the early-nineties design and start poking around. Did you know Gabe Saporta's been picked up by UNIT at least two times now on suspicion of being an extraterrestrial?"

"That's ridiculous," Joe says, settling into the chair on Andy's other side. "Silurians are, like, the complete opposite of extraterrestrials."


	5. Chapter 5

Sometime near the end of May, time breaks.

Like nearly everyone else on the planet with a TV or some alternate access to a newsfeed, Bob is getting ready to watch the broadcast of the big meeting between the Toclafane and various world leaders on the _Valiant_. The meeting isn't supposed to happen for at least another half an hour, but the station is showing some related clips and stories leading up to the event, and if Bob doesn't occupy himself _somehow_ for the next thirty minutes, he knows he's going to give into the itch to sit down at his kit and hash out the beat that's been bugging him for days. If he does that, he's sure to miss the broadcast completely, which would suck since it's a Momentous Event in History and all that crap. Plus, his neighbors are bound to make a complaint, since Bob doubts even Momentous Events in History make it okay for him to be raising a racket at one thirty, two in the morning.

Bob's contemplating searching his kitchen cupboards to see if any microwave popcorn escaped Frank's last visit when his phone starts buzzing against his thigh. A quick glance at the screen shows Patrick's name, and Bob answers without thinking. "'Lo."

"Where are you?" Patrick asks, sharp and urgent.

Usually Patrick is a bit more polite, but sometimes he gets these moods, so Bob doesn't think anything of Patrick's brusqueness. "At my place, just waiting for this Toclafane thing to come on."

"Thank god. Look, d'you know where Pete's parents' place is? Never mind, I'll give you directions. You need to get your ass over here _now_."

"What—"

"Bob, _now_. I'll explain when you get here."

In the years that Bob has known Patrick, the guy has done some odd things, but he's always given good reasons for his actions. Bob supposes this is another one of those odd things, and it's Bob's duty as a good friend, as Patrick's oldest friend, to do this now.

Not that that keeps him from feeling a more than little grumpy as he locks his place up and trudges out to his car, Patrick dictating directions into his ear as he goes.

Bob makes it to the Wentzes' in record time. The streets are dead, both because of the time of night and because pretty much anyone who's awake at this hour is inside, waiting for the broadcast. When Bob arrives, Wentz himself is there to lead Bob through the house to the backyard. "My parents are in Bermuda and my kid sister and brother are at school," Wentz explains. "Patrick insisted you had to come-with since we have the space, plus Joe looked like he was going to cry if Andy said no."

To say that Wentz's words sound ominous would be an understatement, and Bob gives him a wary look. "Come with you where?" Bob demands.

Wentz glances back over his shoulder as he pushes the back door open. "Into space, of course," he says, sounding mildly surprised. Sure enough, when Bob steps outside, the first thing he sees is a sleek-looking ship propped up against a shed. Patrick is standing in the door of it, snapping orders at Hurley while making furious 'hurry-up' gestures with his hands.

Unsure of what to say, Bob cautiously makes his way over to Patrick while Wentz hurries to help Trohman lug a large box up the narrow ramp leading to what Bob supposes must be the cargo hold of the ship. "What the fuck is this, Stump?" Bob demands when he gets close.

"Bob, thank god," Patrick gasps, relief flashing across his face. "I thought you might not make it. We have to try and get into orbit before that broadcast starts."

"And I'm telling you that there isn't enough fuel left in the tanks to get beyond Alpha Centauri," Hurley insists, shaking his head. "Plus, what _is_ in there is at least eighteen years old. It's not meant for fast escapes."

"It's the best bet we've got on short notice like this," Patrick snaps. "We sure as hell can't hitch our way out—Earth is backwater boonies for at least another century or two, hardly anyone comes out this way, and any species with any sort of temporal perception will be keeping as far away as possible from an anomaly this size."

"Wait. What," Bob says flatly, falling into step behind Patrick as he moves the rest of the way into the ship. Bob can understand Hurley talking like he's from another planet since the guy's apparently a giant lizard or something if Trohman is to be believed, but Patrick? Sure, Patrick's bright, but his talents pretty much begin and end with music. Patrick rambling about anomalies and temporal perception doesn't make any sense.

Patrick sighs and rubs his forehead. "We have to get off-planet before the Toclafane arrive," he repeats.

"Why?"

"Because it was the name for some sort of fictional boogeyman on a planet that doesn't even _exist_ anymore," Hurley grumbles, rolling his eyes.

Patrick's head jerks up and he gives Hurley a startled, wide-eyed look. "It doesn't? But—" He gulps and shakes his head. "Not surprising, actually. They always were pretty self-destructive. Anyway, the Toclafane are only part of it. There's something _wrong_ , Andy. The start of a temporal anomaly, I think. It's masked, or hasn't started yet, or something. Doesn't matter, we just have to get out of here before it picks up steam. Get to the Shadow Proclamation or something, _fuck_."

Hurley shrugs. "Whatever, you're lucky I like you. Still don't get how you even know those old stories."

"Later. I'll explain later. There's no time for it now," Patrick says, pushing Hurley to the side and quickly typing a long string of characters that Bob can't even begin to understand into the computer. "Pete, Joe—hurry your asses up. We should have left fifteen minutes ago," Patrick calls back over his shoulder as he punches a button, apparently closing the cargo door. Bob's watch says the broadcast should have started ten minutes ago. It kind of sucks to be missing it, but it's not as if Bob hasn't seen aliens before.

"What the hell is happening?" Bob demands, grabbing the back of Hurley's seat as the ship shudders under them. "You can't expect me to drop everything and go into space without even knowing _why_."

Hurley rocks to his feet, scrambling around the cabin in an effort to tie up the various cables knocked loose by the ship's movement. "From what Patrick's been rambling about, I'd say either your planet's being invaded," Hurley says as he shoves a canister into a niche in the wall and slams the hatch to it shut, "or time is about to collapse back in on itself and explode."

"It can't collapse back," Patrick says distractedly, slipping into Hurley's now-vacant seat. "Saying it might collapse back implies time has some sort of definitive shape, which isn't the case at all. It's more like... well. A mass, that shifts and changes. There's no real before or after. Everything happens simultaneously—the past affects the future, yeah, but the future also affects the past."

Bob is about to point out that Patrick's just described cyclical time whether he likes it or not, when Wentz and Trohman tumble inside, eyes huge. "Shit, it's insane out there," Trohman croaks, pushing his hair out of his face. Patrick yanks down a lever and closes the front hatch, but not before they're all treated to a cacophony of screaming and chaotic yelling from outside.

"Fuck, didn't think you were right," Hurley gasps. He reaches up, yanks on his ear, and suddenly a seam opens up all along his back and his skin is falling fire of his body, leaving behind what looks like a giant, pearlescent newt. The newt slams a—hand? paw?—down on a glowing pad, and while Bob's ears don't register anything, _DNA recognition lock,_ floats across the forefront of his mind in something that sounds an awful lot like Hurley's voice.

The floor shifts under them again and Bob grabs onto the first thing he can reach to keep from falling over. As it turns out, that happens to be Trohman, which could've turned out disastrous. Luckily, Trohman has the presence of mind to lean in, and they're able to hold each other up as the ship lifts off. The screen at the front of the cockpit changes from lists of seemingly random symbols to what Bob figures must be a feed of what's directly in front of them outside, though the view is partially obscured by smoke and bright flashes of light.

Bob assumes the smoke is coming from the ship—they _are_ taking off, after all—until they're high enough up that he can look out over the city and see that no, it's coming from below, from buildings and cars in all directions.

Here and there Bob spots a person when someone emerges from the smoke. They rarely stay in sight for long, though, usually disappearing into a building almost as quickly as they come into view. Those that don't disappear are worse, as more often than not something causes them to fall mid-step. Most who fall down lie still and don't get up again.

"Shit," Joe says softly, still clinging to Bob. He's staring at the screen when Bob glances down, eyes wide and face pale. "It really is an invasion, isn't it? Those Toclafane—they're just gunning people down for no reason."

"When they aren't slicing them up," Wentz adds, sounding queasy as he watches. "What the hell is this? Didn't what's-his-face—Saxon—say he was friends with these guys? This is just—" He breaks off, shaking his head. No doubt at a loss for words.

"It's fucked up is what it is," Patrick growls between clenched teeth. "It's fucked up and wrong and shouldn't even be happening."

"Well, obviously," Hurley says. He's put the head part of his human disguise back on but hasn't bothered with the rest, just slinging it around his neck like the world's most disturbing scarf. "Xenocide is never an acceptable route."

"That's not what I meant," Patrick says tightly. "The temporal anomaly—it's started."

"What _is_ this 'temporal anomaly' you keep going on about?" Bob demands. He's sick of being put off by Patrick. They've launched, it's past time for some answers.

Patrick laughs and shakes his head. "Haven't a clue, to be honest. If there's a way to identify it, they never taught it to us. Or, well. They might've and I just never learned it. Temporal physics was never my strong point in school," he adds, sounding more than a little bitter.

"Temporal physics," Bob says skeptically, because, yeah, right. When has Patrick ever been in a position for anyone to even attempt to teach him something like that? Never, that's when, and now is really not the time for jokes. "Patrick—"

"He's dead, you know," Patrick says suddenly, spinning his chair around so he's facing the four of them. "He died ages ago. In 1985."

"Oh," Joe says. "Huh. I always wondered. Are you telling this now, then?"

"Telling what? Who's dead?" Wentz asks, sounding just as fed up with all this vagueness as Bob is. Bob presses at Patrick's mind, at Joe's, trying to learn more, learn something, anything. It does him no good. All Bob can hear when he reaches out is the rhythm that was bothering him earlier— _dadadadah—dadadadah—_

"Patrick's an alien," Joe says calmly, even as Patrick himself says,

"Patrick Stump is dead."

Not that Bob can really hear either of them, because now that he's opened himself up, the beat is drowning everything else out. Drowning out sound, mental chatter, his own thoughts. It's all Bob can hear.

The sound of drums.

* * *

They haven't even made it past the mesosphere when the fuel light blinks on and the ship starts to shudder and shake. Which is what they deserve, really, expecting a rusty, decades-old ship with questionable fuel to make it off Earth and further. The fuel light flickers and blinks while Andy and Pete dash around the cockpit, switching levers off and on, pressing buttons, flipping switches, all the while holding a conversation that's probably only comprehensible to them, since Andy's pulled his suit off again in order to better maneuver around the room. This of course means that he's speaking at levels inaudible to human ears, and while Pete can understand Andy because of the babel fish in his head, the other humans can't, Bob included since he's been zoned out and nigh-on catatonic for nearly fifteen minutes now, overwhelmed by the psychic broadcast that Patrick, fool that he is, only noticed when Bob collapsed.

Since there's no point in hiding now that everything's out in the open, Patrick takes off his hat and jams it down on Bob's head. The fit's a bit tight, but the shield should help until they come up with something better. Might even get Joe to stop looking so worried. That done, Patrick turns his attention back to Pete and Andy.

Patrick has never really thought about how humans and Gallifreyans differ before beyond the basics (two hearts, mild telepathy, ability to regenerate, longer lifespan, innate sense of time), but apparently hearing is one of those differences. Joe may not be able to hear Andy's half of the conversation, but that doesn't mean Patrick can't. Trying to set Joe at ease, Patrick attempts to explain the gist of it.

"Andy thinks something might've gotten into the fuel tank and screwed up the integrity of the heliodrive—" Patrick breaks off, frowning at Andy and Pete, who have paused in their antics and are not-so-surreptitiously watching him. "Idiots, we're out of fuel, or just about to be, Earth's just been fucking _invaded_ , and you're playing around, making up machines that that can't possibly _exist_ on this ship!" Patrick snaps, glaring at them both. Fucking heliodrive would mean they wouldn't be worrying about fuel, because they could use the fucking _sun_. _Idiots_.

Pete sighs and rolls his eyes. "Such a killjoy, Patrick. Lighten up already. We'll land in one of the national parks in Michigan or Wisconsin, the Toclafane will never find us, and we can, like, win back Earth. It'll be awesome, just wait and see."

Patrick just glares. "Yeah, right. You've never killed anything bigger than a bug in your life. We don't know the first thing about fighting, Pete."

"Well, you three might not," Joe suddenly says, glancing up from where he's been kneeling over Bob, "but I've done it before. For, like, two years now. Bob's been doing it longer."

"It's not the same thing, Trohman," Bob groans, struggling to sit up. "Nostrovites and shit—they're small-time operators. This thing with Saxon and the Toclafane—it covers the whole planet. There are too many Toclafane, we can't take them all on."

Pete glances at Andy and grins. "Well, maybe we can't. But we can sure give them a hell of a time. Lighten up, Bryar—we've got two aliens and a fucking telepath on our side. We can totally make this happen," he says, because Pete's an ass who thinks he's invincible and can do anything, sometimes.

"If we land anywhere on the planet, someone's going to notice. They'll see us land, or sensors will pick it up," Patrick insists. "Either way, we're screwed."

Andy, who's apparently finally decided it's more important to be understood than be comfortable since he's pulled the head of his suit back on, rolls his eyes. "Please. This ship may not be the newest thing out of the Theta quadrant, but there's nothing wrong with its stealth shield. When I landed in Pete's yard, he was the only one who noticed, and that was just because he was looking directly at it. This Saxon guy doesn't seem to expect much of any sort of resistance, especially not from space."

"If he thinks we're not going to fight back, he's fucking nuts," Bob growls, rubbing his forehead. He touches Patrick's hat on his head and makes a face. If circumstances weren't what they are, Patrick would probably be cracking up at the sight of Bob in his slightly too-small fedora.

As it is, though, Patrick can't find it in himself to calm down, because he just can't forget the broadcast they managed to pick up between Bob passing out and the ship's fuel light coming on. Earlier, Patrick's internal alarms started going off as soon as Saxon mentioned Toclafane, because even at a hundred-and-mumble, Patrick still remembers the horror stories whispered around the crèche late at night. The fear he felt at hearing Saxon utter that word was nothing compared to the utter terror that seized Patrick during Saxon's later speech, however. Where the Toclafane were the boogeymen of Gallifrey, make-believe creatures invented to frighten children into good behavior, the Master is Jack the Ripper or Vlad the Impaler. A story made so much more frightening by simple virtue of being more than just a story, being history rather than fiction. The Master is, in some ways, more real than Patrick. More real than anything Patrick's ever encountered in his entire life, except for possibly the one TARDIS he met, ages ago, during another lifetime.

Somehow, Andy and Pete manage to land the ship (for certain degrees of the word 'land') with minimal damage (again, for certain degrees of the word 'minimal') in the middle of a forest. Since they aren't attacked within minutes of landing, Patrick supposes there must be something to what Andy said about the ship's stealth shield. Unfortunately, they're now in the middle of nowhere, miles from the city and without any maps because Pete's epic failure to pack any.

"How was I supposed to know that Google Maps would go down?" Pete whinges, waving around his now-useless phone. "You said alien invasion, not end of life as we know it."

"I didn't know who we were dealing with then, just that something bad was coming," Patrick explains tiredly as he climbs over a fallen tree. He misses his hats, but he only had the one with him, and Bob needs it more than him right now. The 'drumming' telepathic broadcast has quieted some since the arrival of the Toclafane, but slavery does not suit the human race, and without the hat, Bob would be left to listen to the soft psychic crying of six and a half billion people. Even worse, according to Bob, is that Bob sometimes picks up the insane mutterings of the Toclafane themselves.

"What _I_ don't get is why this Ma—"

Patrick and Andy both interrupt Joe, loudly exclaiming, "Don't say his name!"

Joe gives them a dirty look. "Why not? Is it going to summon him?"

"Woah, hey. Don't discount life lessons just because you got them from _Harry Potter_ ," Pete says, frowning.

"Nothing like that. I think. Just. It's better not to. You never know with people like him," Patrick explains, ignoring Pete.

"Translation: Paranoid Patrick is paranoid," Joe grumbles. "Anyway, what I don't get is why You-Know-Who has got Patrick so freaked out. He's an alien who looks like a person—so what? Patrick is one too, and so is Andy when he's in his suit."

"He's an evil megalomaniac who is cunning, charismatic, absolutely insane, _and_ he's telepathically controlling the entire planet," Patrick lists, ticking points off on his fingers.

"The entire planet except for Bob," Joe reminds him. "Because Bob has your hat."

"Right, everyone except for Bob," Patrick agrees wearily. He still can't believe Joe's hero-worship has lasted this long.

"Dude, I _still_ can't believe you thought you had to hide from Bob. Bob _loves_ you, he'd never turn you over to UNIT, and he didn't even know about the Shadow Proclamation until I explained it to him last year," Joe says. "Oh, hey, that's an idea—maybe we can contact UNIT. I bet they have an 'in case of invasion' plan all set up."

Andy snorts. "Okay, first of all, if UNIT could handle this, they would have already done something. Secondly, we don't have any way of contacting them without alerting the Toclafane. Finally, even if we _could_ get in touch with them and save the day, they'd probably lock Bob up and try to deport me—and Patrick, this time—again after everything was done," he says. "And I kind of can't go home for at least another sixty Earth-cycles, and Patrick's home planet isn't even around anymore. I'm pretty sure he's an endangered species."

"Not to mention a member of my species is currently in the process of endangering the entire human race," Patrick grumbles. Stupid fucking Time Lords, ruining everything for every other Gallifreyans. If they're not sterilizing the entire species via unnecessary meddling, the Time Lords are getting civilizations destroyed in Time Wars or enslaving planets in insanity-fueled plans of intergalactic conquest. There are reasons Patrick cut ties with others of his kind decades ago, reasons that go beyond the simple problem that the entire culture had become much too focused on the Time Lords for his tastes.

"It was just a thought," Joe mutters, falling back to trudge silently alongside Bob.

It takes just over two weeks for them to make the trek back to the city. When they get there, they're stuck with the dilemma of what to do next. They've been avoiding heavily populated areas so far, as much because they're afraid of what they might find as because they're trying to elude capture. Now that they're here, Patrick's not entirely sure why they bothered to come back, other than that it's their home territory and they might feel a bit more comfortable.

Standing at the edge of the suburbs, Joe hitches up his pack, a look of determination on his face. "Right," he says, "first things first. What's the shortest route from here to your place, Patrick?"

"Pete and Andy's is closer, we should probably head there first," Patrick says. He's hoping Andy has some extraterrestrial tech stashed away there, something that will help them against the Toclafane, since dodging and hiding won't work forever. Keeping a low profile has become harder and harder the closer they've gotten to more populated areas.

"I guess we can swing by there along the way," Joe says thoughtfully. "But it might be better to put it off until we've been by yours."

"Dude, why even bother with Patrick's? I've still got, like, a shitload of survival stuff in my basement from when _someone_ panicked over Y2K," Pete reminds them, shooting a glare at Andy.

"Yeah, but Patrick's place has something even more crucial to our survival than a nigh-unlimited supply of dubious canned foods," Joe insists.

Pete starts to protest, no doubt ready to jump in and defend the virtue of his cans, but Bob breaks in before Pete can do much more than look indignant. "Alright, Trohman. What has Patrick got stashed away that we need so much?" he asks.

"Hats, of course," Joe says, an obnoxiously large grin spreading across his face.

* * *

From ages ten to twenty, Joe knew he wanted nothing more in life than to play music with his friends (well, except for the six or so months where he'd wanted to be a wizard, but that turned out to just be a passing phase). Then Joe found out about Bob fighting aliens and maybe, maybe that was just as good. Sure, there was less music, but the adrenaline level was pretty much the same and, as an added bonus, there was a hell of a lot more Bob. There is very little in this world as amazing as Bob Bryar, Joe's sure.

Who would have thought that it would take an alien invasion for Joe to learn his true calling in life was as an apocalypse survivor? Organizer. Man-with-a-plan. Whatever. Andy may be familiar with more extraterrestrial species and languages than have ever shown up in the entire _Star Trek_ franchise; Patrick may know the history and legends of every civilization from here to Omega Centauri (Joe doubts it, though—Patrick seems to really know two things and two things only—music and Gallifrey's entire history of mistakes and mishaps); Pete has—had—connections all over, to everyone; and Bob can read your mind and make you weep like a baby (theoretically—Joe's never actually seen Bob do the latter). But none of them would have lasted a month in Toclafane-occupied Chicago without Joe.

Joe's the one who realized Patrick's hat was hiding Bob from the Toclafane. He's the one who thought to try using a souped-up stun gun on the Toclafane. (It wasn't that hard a thing to figure out—computers and other fancy electronics could short out if enough of a charge went through them, why not the Toclafane in their mechanized spheres?). Bob's good—with the connections he's made and the years of experience he's racked up, it's hard for him not to be—but he also has a hard time believing in the fantastic, even after all this time, and his stubborn refusal to indulge in leaps of intuition make it difficult for Bob to plan on his feet. Joe readily acknowledges that Bob is made of rainbows and sunshine and magic, but he also realizes that Bob relies on telepathy a lot in a fight, and that's not an option as long as Bob's wearing one of Patrick's hats.

Of course, Joe's also the one pinned to the ground with a knife pressed to his throat at the moment. Granted, the situation isn't as bad as it could be—the knife _is_ in the hands of a rather attractive blonde—but Joe still feels like he's gotten the short end of the stick in this. "Look," Joe says, trying his hardest to look meek and non-threatening, "I think there may've been a miscommunication here. I'm not your enemy." He frowns, thinks for a minute, then adds a cautious, "Probably."

The girl growls, which, hey, is kind of hot (Joe is the first to admit that he has a bit of a weakness for blonds with attitude problems), but not really helpful in the current situation. "I doubt that," she snaps, pressing the knife a little closer, close enough to shave some of Joe's carefully-cultivated stubble. Unfair, really—how is Joe supposed to grow a kickass beard if he keeps getting tackled by knife-carrying blonds? "I've seen how you and your buddies walk around town—the Toclafane don't bother you, they don't touch you. You've sold out your _species_. That's fucked up, Trohman."

"Wait, is _that_ what this is about? Hell, we haven't got any sort of deal with them except for how we kill them whenever we can manage it," Joe explains, mind whirring away as he processes what she just said. She called him by name. They're careful to not attract attention these days (though not careful enough, it seems), so if she knows him by name, it's probably because she knows him from before all this happened. Which means she's probably (possibly) ex-scene. Weird.

"Why don't they go after you, then?" she demands, knife still pressed close.

"Oh, that's just—"

"None of your business," Bob growls, suddenly popping up behind her, his taser pressed against her neck. Joe's heart possibly skips a beat because, man. _Bob_. How so cool?

"Hey, now. I think this is just a simple misunderstanding," Joe says, carefully pushing the knife away from his throat. "We're all on the same side, Bob. Girl whose name I don't know." Joe scoots back and stands, rubbing his neck where the blade was pressed.

As soon as Joe's upright again, Bob's reaching over and pressing Joe's hat back on his head, grumbling about how Joe's sure to be the death of him one of these days. This is because Bob is secretly a giant teddy bear inside but is afraid people will find out so he acts gruff when he's worried. It's kind of really awesome.

Still.

"Anyway. Really, Bob? _Really?_ You're supposed to be our litmus-test person. You're not supposed to go around threatening lovely scene ladies just because they're all killer and capable." Joe huffs and rolls his eyes, reaching over to pull Bob's taser away from the girl.

"I'm not a scenester. Well, not exactly. I mean—" the girl insists at the same time that Bob defensively grumbles,

"I can't _get_ anything through the damned _hat_ , idiot."

Which, okay, Joe supposes that that's a valid enough point. Since Bob's paranoia is only entertaining in very small doses, Joe swipes Bob's hat. "Okay then, Bob o' my heart, what's your read on her? Is she a dangerous dame or just another person trying to survive?"

Bob glares at him (expected; for some reason Bob fails to see the appeal of the increasingly hilarious nicknames Joe's been cultivating for him), but still grudgingly admits that, "...she's safe. As near as I can tell. Now give me back the hat already, I'm getting a fucking headache from the noise."

"You are _so_ spoiled, Bryar. You are spoiled for regular, hat-free life now. When we are done winning the planet back for humans—and Andy and Patrick—you won't be able to cope with everyday life," Joe says sadly as he plops the hat back on Bob's head. "Your band is totally going to be pissed at us for making you all hatly and ruining their aesthetic."

"Oh!" the girl says suddenly, gasping and covering her mouth.

"What?" Bob snaps, grimly pulling his hat down and beginning the useless process of trying to get it to fit properly. Useless because Patrick's head is fucking tiny and none of his hats sit properly on _anyone's_ head but his own.

"You're Bob _Bryar_. I didn't recognize you at first because of, y'know. The layer of dirt. And the hat." She frowns, stowing away her knife. "I thought you'd be... bigger."

"Apocalypse diet," Joe confides with a grimace. Sure, Bob's teddy bear fluff is being replaced with hard muscle, which has its own appeal, but Joe misses the softness.

"We have a message for you back at HQ, Bryar," the girl says, ignoring Joe in a very rude and uncalled for way. "I'm Greta, by the way."

"Grand to meet you," Joe grumbles. He knows he shouldn't be peeved that they're both ignoring him—hell, he should be used to Bob ignoring him by now. Except for how Bob never really ignores Joe, even when it seems like he is. Bob wouldn't keep managing to save Joe's ass otherwise. "How can you have a message? I thought communication networks were pretty much wiped out right after contact."

"Telegraph still works," Greta says as Bob helps her to her feet. Joe tries not to glare, but it's hard when Greta is clinging to Bob after she _tried to kill Joe_. "Someone dug out some old stuff from the Navajo code talker days and it's worked alright so far. Toclafane are curious and brutal, but they don't have the attention spans to try and decode anything we send, as long as we keep messages short enough that they don't get suspicious."

"Have you heard anything from the U.K.?" Bob asks suddenly, eyes bright and alert in a way they haven't been for a while now. If Joe were to put a name to it, he'd say they were full of hope, and Joe can understand why—loathe as he is to speak on the subject, Patrick's told them about the member of his species who acts as the Master's foil, the alien called the Doctor. According to Patrick, Earth in general and England in particular are special favorites of the Doctor. A message from the U.K. could mean help is on the way.

Greta shakes her head. "Telegraph lines don't cross the ocean, and the boats that do come mainly carry supplies, not information." She frowns, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Unless you're talking about Martha Jones, I mean," she adds.

"Who?" Joe asks, glancing at Bob and raising his eyebrows questioningly. Bob shrugs and shakes his head. Not Bob's mysterious contact in Wales, then.

"No idea. I was hoping there might be some word from Jack Harkness or Torchwood," Bob says. "Harkness is an info-mine when it comes to getting out of tricky spots, and Torchwood's like the Panic! kids, only a lot older, a lot more organized, and government."

"So's UNIT," Joe says, because this whole mess really is their forte. Not that Joe's all too keen on UNIT what with how they've been total jerks in the past. "Anyway, there's no way we can go with Greta now. We've been out for nearly three hours. If we don't report in soon, Patrick's going to freak and think we've been abducted and he needs to commit seppuku before He-Whom-Patrick-Is-Paranoid-About comes looking to absorb his talented brain. Or whatever." Patrick's paranoia: Annoying, but definitely hilarious.

"He'll freak if we bring Greta back," Bob reminds him, "and it's close enough to curfew that we can't leave her here."

"I can take care of myself," Greta insists.

"Yeah, but Bob has this overprotective-gentleman-teddy-bear thing going on," Joe tells her, rolling his eyes. Normally, Joe finds this to be one of Bob's more endearing traits, but right now it strikes him as being more tedious and annoying than anything else.

"Trust me," Greta says with a snort as she melts into the long shadows of late afternoon, "I can take care of myself."

* * *

Six months after the Toclafane's arrival on the Earth, Joe manages to get captured by a member of one of the other factions in the city. ("I wasn't _captured_ ," Joe insists, "I was merely momentarily incapacitated by a very attractive female.") Andy honestly doesn't know how a species like _Homo sapient_ has managed to last as long as it has when it doesn't have any built-in way to hide or defend (not in an effective manner, at least). Bob freaks out about Joe's capture, of course, because Bob is overprotective, almost as paranoid as Patrick, and still hasn't managed to learn over the years that, risk-taker he may be, Joe somehow always succeeds in coming out on top. At least, Joe ends up on top when he's staking his survival on his ability to accurately judge a person's character. It's a weird Joe-thing.

As a result of this whole debacle, they end up forming a loose alliance with some of the other rebel groups in the city. It comes as something of a surprise to Andy that there _are_ rebel groups of any note outside their own small band, considering how weak humans are compared to most every other highly intelligent life form Andy's ever encountered.

From Greta, they learn that there are actually multiple messages waiting for them. These consist of a somewhat-convoluted memo for Pete from Gabe, who apparently has some sort of weird suburban-guerilla-slash-commune-slash-resistance thing he's running out in Jersey, and a message for Bob from Frank Iero. Both are just brief notes that do little more than give them a heads-up of who was still alive and kicking when the messages were sent a few months back. There's a communication blackout west of the Mississippi, so there's no news on the Panic! kids, which is a shame. According to Patrick, there's a sort of transdimensional rift in the universe near Las Vegas, and something like that could be really useful in the fight to win the planet back for _Homo sapiens_ (and friends).

More importantly— _most_ importantly, in Andy's mind—is that in connecting with Greta's group they learn about Martha Jones and her message. Martha Jones, it seems, knows the man called the Doctor. The most famous member of Patrick's species. According to Martha, the Doctor is still around after all this time, survivor of the Time War, survivor of countless life-or-death scenarios, just plain survivor. To hear Martha tell it, the Doctor is still alive, he's been saving humanity from itself for centuries, and he can save them again now, all they have to do is _believe_.

The whole concept seems more than a little far-fetched to Andy, but, hey—in the past year he's learned that Joe's ridiculous mancrush is psychic, Patrick is a member of a species previously thought extinct, and five grown men can cram into a two-man deep-space pod if they're friendly enough.

At this point, Andy's ready to believe just about _anything_.

* * *

_(Skip sideways and do a pirouette.)_

* * *

"Later, I'll explain later," Patrick says, leaning forward to get at the keyboard. Only he keeps leaning, keeps going and the only reason Patrick doesn't faceplant on the console is that Bob catches him at the last minute. Patrick's mental chatter is quiet in the best of times, but at the moment it's devolved into a disturbingly mechanical-sounding sort of static. When he tries to set Patrick back on his feet, Bob sees that Patrick's eyes aren't tracking right, each one instead skittering about independently of the other, rolling weirdly in their sockets.

"Fuck—Patrick? Shit, I think he's having a stroke," Bob says, trying hard not to panic. "Screw space, we need to get to a hospital."

"Make up your minds already. Crazy mammals," Hurley grumbles, throwing his arms up in frustration.

"Patrick?" Wentz rushes into the cabin, leaping over a box and skidding to a stop next to Bob. He takes one look at Patrick and his face turns grim. "Bob's right. Space can wait—Joe, call 911."

"No," Patrick gasps, shuddering and reaching out to clutch at Wentz's shirt. "I'm, I'm okay. No doctors." Patrick allows Bob to help him the pilot's seat that Hurley just vacated, but he's still breathing heavily. "Sorry."

"What the fuck, Patrick," Joe says flatly from where he's standing in the doorway, apparently drawn by commotion. "What just happened?"

"I. I don't know?" Patrick tugs down on the brim of his cap, then glances at Wentz. "What's the word for remembering something that never happened?"

"Déjà vu," Wentz says even as Joe pipes up with,

"Paradox."

Patrick sighs and shakes his head. "Neither of those sound right. Argh, this is going to bug the hell out of me. I swear I used to know it."

"Hey," Hurley says, clapping his hands to grab everyone's attention. "Are we leaving the planet or not? Just, you seemed to feel we were on some kind of timetable and now doesn't seem like the time to worry over semantics."

"Oh. Well. No. No, we're... not leaving," Patrick says slowly, rubbing his temples as if to forestall a headache. "The... problem? The problem. It isn't one anymore. I think. Sorry, can't explain better."

Bob frowns. No way is he going to be put off that easily. "You should still go to the hospital," he says stubbornly, more than a little gratified to see Wentz nod furiously in agreement. "People's eyes are _not_ supposed to act like that."

" _No doctors_ ," Patrick says firmly. "I'm fine, it's just a migraine." He glances at the screen showing the fallout of Saxon's touted broadcast and President Winter's assassination. "Nothing happened."

* * *

The Year That Never Was ends as Martha Jones foresaw, with her doctor saving the day, defeating the Toclafane and the Master. As a part of all that, the Master's paradox machine—the tool that allowed the entire invasion, allowed the deaths of millions of people by those who would be their descendents several millennia down the line—is shut down and everything—the whole entire year of killing, fighting, and slavery—never happens as the clock is wound back to just after the Toclafanes' assassination of the U.S. president. No one remembers anything that happened after the machine was turned on, because none of it _did_ happen. No one remembers except for those at the eye of the proverbial storm, on board the _Valiant_.

And a small handful of temporally-sensitive individuals scattered across the globe.

Patrick doesn't precisely _remember_ what occurred, exactly. Something happened, something big and wrong that leaves Patrick with a bad taste in his mouth and a migraine that lasts for days. No one else notices, though. No one else _says_ anything.

"What's with you?" Joe wants to know, kicking at Patrick's ankle. Joe's ostensibly there to jam, but he's mostly only had eyes for Bob, who crashed on Patrick's couch the night before and is now sleepily moving around the apartment.

"Have you seen anything out of the ordinary lately?" Patrick asks, because Joe has this annoying habit of picking up on all kinds of things that he has no business noticing in the first place. "In the past month or so, I mean. Since that thing with the Toclafane." Lately, it's felt as if there's a snag in the convoluted fabric of time, and it—it _irks_ him. Patrick is nowhere near as sensitive to the temporal state of things as those of his species who once claimed the titles of Time Lords or Ladies, but Patrick's still a native of Gallifrey. He still has an innate sense of things whether he likes it or not.

"There was an Empacyte at a show Bob and I went to a couple of days ago. Bob's contact in Wales said that's a sort of psychic vampire, but not really dangerous at all. Mostly they just hang out in places with lots of strong emotions and sort of float along," Joe says thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but you already knew there was an Empacyte in the area," Patrick says, distracted by the news Joe and Bob are apparently going to shows without him now.

"Uh, no. Nadeen only got into town last week. She's been traveling—"

"—with a circus, working the coconut shy," Patrick says. He frowns and rubs his forehead, feeling a disconcerting moment of déjà vu, made all the worse by the fact that Patrick _knows_ what causes déjà vu—they're weak spots in time where the present is affecting the past instead of vice versa. It's something that used to happen more frequently back when there were Time Lords all over, poking their noses into places they didn't belong.

But there aren't any Time Lords now, if Andy's to be believed. They all died in the Time War, or maybe never existed in the first place. Temporal physics have never been one of Patrick's strengths. Anyone messing with the timestream now is either a chronopirate, pillaging ancient civilizations for 'misplaced' masterpieces, or a Time Agent, though most of them tend to stick close to the 49th through 52nd centuries. And any Time Agent that might be on Earth would probably take issue with Patrick's accidental foray into identity theft.

Patrick flops back on his floor and sighs. He doesn't know why he's letting this bother him. He's had headaches before, and while it's uncommon for his species to experience déjà vu, it's not unheard of. Really, Patrick should just put the whole thing out of his head.

It probably isn't anything, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

There's been an itch under Frank's skin all afternoon. A nagging, insistent feeling like he's forgotten something. Or maybe that someone is watching him, Frank isn't certain. He just knows he's felt unsettled and out of sorts today. The lights and noise of the club aren't helping to distract him like he'd hoped they would, and Frank's really regretting letting Mikey drag him out tonight.

He slips out onto a balcony, hoping the cool of early autumn and a smoke will help him clear his head. When Frank sees that someone else is already there, he nearly turns right back around. He's really not interested in company right now.

"You feel it too, right?" the other man asks, tilting his head back so the moonlight catches in the shadows of his raised hood, illuminating a pair of wrap-around sunglasses.

Great. Saporta. The only douchebag Frank knows of who always insists on wearing shades, no matter what the light's like. Mikey swears the guy isn't actually blind, just has an eye condition that makes it so he has to keep them covered. Frank wonders if Mikey's looked at what passes for an outfit for Saporta lately—Frank's pretty sure that level of neon was outlawed once the eighties ended.

"Feel what?" Frank asks cautiously and against his better judgement. He's not too keen on engaging this nutcase in the best of times, let alone tonight after the kind of day he's had.

"Something happening. Coming. One of those—it's all mixed up with temporal shenanigans. Someone's probably been working on borrowed time again." Saporta's tongue flicks out, tasting the night air like a lizard might. He frowns, then shoves his glasses up onto his forehead and squints in the direction of Central Park, gripping the half-wall surrounding the balcony so he can lean out past the edge. "Preteens. Two of them, probably. And a… star? Not as familiar with celestial bodies in atmospheric situations," Saporta mutters. He pulls a beat-up paperback from the pocket of his hoodie and thumbs through it. "White hole. Yeah, that'd do it."

Frank has no idea what Saporta is talking about, but at the same time it's not like he's following all too closely. He's too busy staring at Saporta's face. "Your eyes—" They're probably contacts—they have to be contacts, right?

"Perception filter always does a shit job on them, sorry," Saporta says, blinking first one yellow, slit-pupiled eye at Frank, then the other. "Didn't mean to startle you."

The squeal of brakes drifts up from somewhere below them, followed by the scream of metal being scraped against stone. A shiver seems to pass through the world that has nothing to do with the sounds of a car accident and, though he can't rightly say why, Frank glances up to the sky, searching for the moon.

Beside him, Saporta's mouth has thinned to a grim line. He takes a phone from his pocket and starts talking into it at a rapid pace, his gaze now fixed on the book in his other hand. "What the hell is going on? I know you have something to do with it, I can smell borrowed time a mile away and you and Swale just got a couple of new ones. Yes, of course I keep track, wouldn't you if you were in my position? Wait, what? Who the hell puts the _sun_ out as part of their ordeal?"

Frank isn't paying attention as Saporta rambles. Above them the moon, full and bright only a few minutes ago, is starting to lose its shine. He pulls his jacket tighter, feeling inexplicably colder. It's probably just a cloud passing by overhead, blocking out the moon. Probably. Or an eclipse. It could be a lunar eclipse.

"The Powers have to be out of their minds, trusting inexperienced human children to take care of the bright Book and save an entire system," Saporta grumbles. "I'm lodging a complaint with the Planetrary, next time I see her. What about the Trion? What do you mean, 'What Trion?' The one standing right—oh. _Oh._ " Saporta flips through his book, scanning the contents, his earlier frown deepening further. "Yeah. I can do that. You're sure it's—well. Alright." He slides the phone shut before slipping it into his back pocket and turning to Frank.

"What's up? Trouble?" The moon has nearly disappeared entirely, and while there are streetlights and headlights and any number of other lights all around them, they don't really mean anything, the way the whole _world_ feels darker and colder right now. Frank's really wishing he never set foot outside today.

"Isn't it always, with ordeals?" Saporta asks, yellow eyes queer in the weak light that remains. "Iero, right? One of Mikey's guys."

Frank shrugs a shoulder. If he's anyone's he's probably Gerard's, but those two are big on sharing, so close enough. "What do you mean, ordeals?" he asks. He wasn't exactly following Saporta's phone conversation, but it sounded like something big is happening and Saporta knows way more than your average mildly-creepy guy. Plus, there's something familiar about the words Saporta was using. Something on the edge of Frank's memory, niggling at him but never quite rising to the surface.

"Oh, you know. The usual. Good versus evil, light versus dark, preteen versus eldritch abomination, etcetera. Nothing for you to worry about—the good guys will probably win in the end, and if they don't the fallout will be big enough that you aren't likely to ever know what hit you." Saporta sighs. Fiddles with his sunglasses, then pulls them off entirely. Saporta's third eye glares at Frank from the middle of his forehead, an impossible, soul-searing red. "Sorry about this."

Everything goes black.

* * *

Mikey finds Frank passed out in an armchair on the club's balcony sometime after two. "Is this where you've been hiding out all night? Jesus, Frank, it's cold as fuck out here." He helps Frank to his feet, keeps a hand on Frank's shoulder when he stumbles and nearly falls flat on his face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I just. Had some really bad dreams?"

"You don't sound too sure about that."

"I don't know, I've had this fucking headache all day and running into that weirdo earlier didn't help any." Frank squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again. The red and yellow spots flickering across his vision fade a little, but don't disappear completely.

"What weirdo?" Mikey asks, tugging the door open and urging Frank through. The club isn't nearly as crowded now, and the general clatter and cacophony have dulled enough that Frank no longer has to struggle to hear himself think over the pounding in his head.

"I... I don't remember, now." Frank frowns but, try as he might, he can't recall who he saw on the balcony earlier, let alone what they talked about.

"It's been a weird night all around," Mikey says. "The news was blowing up about the sun going out and, like, someone went Human-Torch nova over the city around ten o'clock."

"The sun went out? But it's nighttime?" When Frank tries to wrap his head around that, he nearly collapses from the sharp, stabbing pain that hits his temple.

If Mikey notices Frank stumble and gasp, he doesn't say anything. "In, like, Australia or something. It's back now, if it was ever gone in the first place. The scientists are talking sunspots and clouds of cosmic dust and shit. Gee won't stop texting me about how there's probably been a comic book Crisis and we're now living in an alternate timeline. If he starts asking you if you were a circus acrobat before being tragically orphaned at a young age, I'd block him."

"Yeah, okay," Frank says, because Gerard can get weird about Batman trivia and sometimes you just have to cut him off at the start before he spirals into tinhat territory. Probably also not the time to point out that Frank's been dyeing his orange curls black for the better part of the past decade. "Thanks for the warning."

* * *

Having grown used to the oddly surreal bit of genius that is Ryan Smith, it takes Patrick a while to pinpoint the exact cause of change in the kid. As it is, Patrick doesn't interact with Panic! all that often to start with, despite Pete and Ryan's mutual fanboying of each other. Patrick is fine with this. The Panic! kids are unnerving under the best of circumstances—too bright, too keen. Normally neither trait would bother Patrick—he thinks it's amazing how humans are able to persevere despite frequently lacking a number of the advantageous traits and abilities that many other highly intelligent life forms in the universe possess—but in this case, Patrick would really rather have the kids be a little stupider, a little more lackadaisical. Since he can't change them, Patrick usually settles for avoiding the Panic! boys as much as possible.

Unfortunately, it seems that avoidance is soon to cease to be an option for an indefinite span of time.

"Here, try this one, you'll love it," Pete says, his voice thrumming with excitement as he reaches over Patrick's shoulder to skip to the next song in iTunes. The Panic! kids, it would seem, have sent Pete a zip of five songs and asked him for his opinion. Patrick supposes this shouldn't come as a surprise to him, really—the boys have always introduced themselves as a band, despite the fact that they don't seem to ever do much in the way of playing music. No doubt because most of their time is swallowed up by the never-ending tasks of saving each other and the world. If Patrick's ever given any thought to Panic! At the Disco's status as a musical unit, it's been to think about how _un_ serious they are when it comes to music.

Nothing he's so far seen from Panic! has even remotely prepared Patrick for what he's listening to right now. He knows Ryan has something of a gift when it comes to electronics—Patrick's seen the extra-dimensional space Ryan's managed to attach to the back of his car, something that's far beyond the abilities of the average extraterrestrial, to say nothing of the average human—but for some reason it's never even occurred to Patrick that the kid might be able to manage to knock together a decent recording studio on his own as well.

Even more surprising than the quality of the sound is the caliber of the music itself. These tracks don't sound anything like the demos Pete usually gets, hidden gems in the rough. This is polished. It's the work of musicians who know that sometimes you have to give up on a turn of phrase or a verse no matter how much you love it. Maybe not professional, but getting close, almost there.

"Well?" Pete asks, bringing Patrick back to the real world. "What d'you think? They're good, right?"

Patrick nods, frowning thoughtfully. "It doesn't sound like them," he says finally, because it doesn't. The Panic! boys have never been this focused on the music, not even the telepathic one who thinks in beats and measures at a volume so loud that sometimes he's even able to break through the dampening fields built into Patrick's hats. This is a union of notes and words, twisting and twining around each other in a complex choreography that allows each to build on the other, shoring them up so they support and complement one another. This is something new.

Pete grins, though his enthusiasm quickly passes into seriousness. "Yeah, they've grown up. I think I'm going to offer them a contract," he adds, which just draws a snort out of Patrick, because of _course_ Pete is going to offer them a contract. Hell, Pete probably would've done that ages ago when Panic were still young and unpolished if they'd ever expressed an interest.

"Do you even know where they are right now?" Patrick quips, raising an eyebrow. Somewhere in the continental U.S., likely, he knows, though Patrick supposes that, theoretically, the Panic! boys could be just about anywhere on either American continent that can be reached by road or ferry.

"On their way here, actually," Pete says, pulling out his phone and presumably calling Ryan. "That's why I asked your opinion now. Wanted to know what you thought before I met with them and did anything definite."

Patrick's stomach twists and dips. He likes the kids, but he prefers them at a distance, far from his home territory. His defenses are strong, he's had to have them that way what with Bob and all, but the Panic! boys still leave Patrick feeling uneasy and nervous. Try as he might to keep it from showing, he's pretty sure the elder Smith brother senses that there's something different about Patrick.

Drawing attention to himself has always been the last thing that Patrick wants. There are people whose trust he's taken advantage of and abused by taking up the name and life of Patrick Stump. There are species who hold grudges against Patrick's own species due to the actions of a select, privileged few. There are xenophobic humans who fear anything different, anything not exactly like them.

Finally, there are the rest of Patrick's people. He may've cut ties with them over seventy Earth years ago, when their policies, their actions, their war killed the only one of their number that Patrick ever gave a damn about. The Time Lords won't care that Patrick never meant to steal the identity of a human child. There are rules against such things, rules that are laid out in strict black and white, the only shades a Time Lord or Lady can see in. Grey is non-existent in their world. Patrick has no idea what the fate of the Time Lords was as a result of the Time War (which he'd assume to still be going strong, except that time is no longer in flux the way it was before, and besides, Andy talks of the War as something in the distant past), and Patrick has no desire to.

Still, Spencer and his crew don't have the means, connections, or any reason to contact any of the groups Patrick is loathe to draw the attention of, so Patrick's fears are most probably baseless. He hopes.

Not even Patrick's regular state of paranoia is enough to prepare him for the shock he experiences when the boys of Panic! finally arrive this time, however. While he's ready for Brendon's unintentional probing and Spencer's suspicious glances, it's Ryan's delighted laugh that brings Patrick up short and causes him to momentarily lose his breath. Patrick knows why Panic!'s music has changed, now. He knows why the songs Pete had him listen to earlier sound so polished and complete. There's never been any doubt in Patrick's mind that Ryan is either all or at least partly extraterrestrial when it comes to his genetic make up, but Patrick's never wondered about Ryan's species or origins, never particularly felt any need to. Las Vegas is built around a rip in the fabric of space and time, and Patrick has always just assumed Ryan Smith to be a product or a result of that anomaly. Now, it seems, that foolish assumption may end up costing Patrick his freedom.

Ryan isn't just more confident, more complete. His mind is tripping, fumbling after Brendon's intimidating psychic presence. Quieter, weaker than his friend, but there. Behind that curious mental voice is a keen mind, one that can easily understand and deconstruct meters, measures, music, methodology, mechanics, minutes, moments. When Patrick strains his senses, he can hear the two hearts that beat in Ryan's chest.

For the first time in nearly seventy years, Patrick is not alone.

* * *

Something happens and the whole world goes crazy. Or, rather, something happens and the whole world _changes_. Patrick is at his parents' house, helping his mom with Christmas dinner, when she freezes up and says in a faint voice, "There's a face in my mind."

"Mom? Are you alright?" Patrick asks, taking a cautious step towards her. She keeps blinking and shaking her head, like she's trying to clear her vision, or her mind.

"I don't—There's a face, Patrick. In my mind," she repeats. "He keeps laughing."

"What—" Patrick starts to say, but he breaks off as he's nearly bowled over by a wave a blue energy. In front of him, it's like his mother's head-shaking has gone into fast-forward. He dashes into the next room to grab his dad, only to find his dad, brother, and entire extended family struck by the same affliction. Patrick may not have fancy Time Lord training, but he knows enough about the world to spot a common denominator when he sees one. Something, it seems, is wrong with the human race.

Of course, he'll need corroboration to verify that's definitely the case. Patrick fumbles his phone from his pocket and calls Andy. Revealing himself is one of the last things Patrick wants to do after all this time, but if whatever-this-is isn't limited to just this house or the surrounding area—if this is planet-wide, like Patrick fears it might be, from the level of _sheer power_ he felt in the energy wave that passed through—Patrick's comfort is negligible if the fate of an entire _species_ is on the line. (He squashes the quiet, bitter voice in the back of his head that insists Patrick risking his life could very well consist of putting an entire species in jeopardy. Just because Ford and Andy and every other extraterrestrial Patrick's encountered for the past however-many decades all say that Gallifrey and her people are nothing but space dust and memories doesn't mean it's _true_. There's Ryan, after all. There could be other survivors, somewhere.)

The phone goes straight to voicemail, which could mean anything. Maybe Andy's stuck in fast-forward also and Patrick's only okay because of the chronal aspects of his physiology; maybe Andy's busy trying to save Pete and the rest of the Wentzes from whatever this is. Maybe Andy's turned off his phone for the holiday—Andy takes other cultures' celebrations very seriously, after all. Either way, all thoughts of Andy's fate are shoved from Patrick's mind as around him people's heads have stopped shaking and settled down back to normal again. Normal, that is, except for the fact that they've _changed_. Everyone, young and old, male and female, has turned into same crazed-looking blond man.

"Hello," the one that used to be his Aunt Muriel says in an British accent. "Now isn't _that_ interesting."

"You shouldn't be here," says the man dressed in Patrick's father's clothes as he advances towards Patrick along with the rest of the group.

Patrick stumbles backwards, right into what was once his mother. The collision knocks off Patrick's hat and for one brief second he's so distracted in catching the hat that it doesn't register. But then.

Glancing up from the hat, Patrick finds himself looking into the manic eyes that have replaced his mother's warm blue-grey ones and his hearts seize up in his chest. "Oh shit," is out of Patrick's mouth before he can stop himself. " _You_."

Then Patrick is pushing past the man, jamming his hat back on his head as he flees through the kitchen door and out of the house. The hat's shields and weak chameleon field won't offer Patrick much protection now that they—he?—know that Patrick is here, but every little bit can't hurt when it comes to this man.

Patrick heard horror stories when he was little. Cautionary tales about the Time Lord driven mad by looking into the Vortex of Time itself. A rogue agent who was only out for himself and his demented quest to quench the primeval hunger awakened in him by whatever he saw in the Vortex.

On the plus side, Patrick's just come face-to-face with incontrovertible proof that he and the Smith kid aren't the last of Gallifrey's people. Unfortunately, this survivor is the worst of them, a man who's somehow managed to rewrite the fundamental basics of the entire human race and turn them all into clones of himself.

An entire planet of Masters.

* * *

Excited barking yanks Frank out of sleep and into wakefulness. He isn't quick enough to take evasive action, however, and he still gets a faceful of slobber and atrocious breath. "Ugh, _off_ ," Frank groans, pushing Taco away. "It's only—" Frank glances at the clock and blinks in surprise. "—ten after twelve? Huh, wow. Did not expect that." His mom has the annoying habit of calling him before eight on holidays, supposedly to make sure he, "doesn't waste half the day in bed." Apparently she's finally realized he's an adult and capable of taking care of himself. It's only taken her ten years.

Another yip from Taco has Frank rolling out of bed and following the little dust mop to the kitchen, where Taco patiently waits by the back door until Frank lets him out. "Yeah, yeah, you aren't fooling anyone with your well-behaved innocent act," Frank grumbles. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Frank makes his way over to the coffee pot and sets about starting it up.

He's still waiting for the pot to finish when Taco comes barreling back in through the door like all the demons of hell (or at least all the neighborhood cats) are after him. Jumping at Frank's shins, trying to catch his attention, Taco yips, "Boss, boss! Wrong! All wrong, boss!"

Frank leaves off trying to calm the dog, instead staring down at the Havanese. It's been years since Frank made any attempt to converse with birds and whales. He's never been entirely sure if he made up the excursions his childhood babysitter used to take him on. Common sense has always argued against the accuracy of Frank's memories; at the same time, this isn't the first time in recent history that Frank could've sworn some animal spoke actual words.

Taking all this into account, Frank rubs his eyes and stares intently down at Taco. "What's wrong?" he asks carefully, keeping his attention focused on the dog's face. Frank can't remember how it was he learned Carl's magic Speech in the first place, but he's kind of hoping it'll all come back to him if he just doesn't think too hard about it. If it's even real in the first place, of course.

"All the bosses!" Taco yips, placing his front paws on Frank's knees and staring back just as intently. "Everyone says so."

"Everyone?" Even as he asks, Frank notices the way all the neighborhood dogs are barking their heads off, something his sleep-addled brain hadn't really registered earlier. "What's wrong with all the bosses?"

"Changed! Bosses aren't bosses."

Frank frowns. Gives what he's being told honest consideration because otherwise he'd have to think about how he's having a serious conversation with his dog before his first cup of coffee on Christmas Day. "So, what—all us people stopped, uh, looking?—smelling?—right overnight?"

"Bad smell," Taco barks agreeably.

When Frank takes into account the kind of crap (sometimes literally) that Taco prefers to stick his nose in, he doesn't think he particularly wants to know what constitutes a 'bad' smell to a whole bunch of dogs. Still. "How do I smell bad?"

Taco tilts his head to the side, giving Frank a curious doggy look. "Not _you_ , boss." The dog slobbers all over Frank's bare toes, then adds, "Boss smell. Good smell."

Well, that's both reassuring and at the same time pretty worrying, Frank decides. Good to know he hasn't changed; not so good that, according his dog, everyone else around him has. Ugh. This is probably some weird thing like when all those supposed ghosts turned into killer robots a few years back, or the time when the sun went out and Gerard was positive some sort of comic book Crisis happened. Or, like, that thing last year where _the whole fucking planet moved_ for a day. According to the little dude who likes to stalk Bob, all that shit had to do with aliens, but Frank prefers to reserve judgement. His dog is talking to him right now, after all, and in Frank's experience, talking animals fall strictly in the purview of wizards.

"It's probably nothing to worry about," Frank decides, reaching down to pat Taco's head reassuringly. "It's gone back to normal every other time this sort of thing's happened in the past. If we wait long enough, someone will come along and fix it this time, too." Still. "Probably a good idea to not to let anyone else know my smell hasn't changed, though," he cautions Taco.

The look Taco gives him is rather disconcerting. A Havanese should _never_ look that shrewd in Frank's opinion. "Not _stupid_ , boss."

"Right. Right, okay." Frank sighs. He is _definitely_ looking Carl up once the current mess has been resolved. This is just fucking ridiculous.

* * *

Three blocks from Pete's parents' place, Andy finally answers his phone. "...Patrick?" Andy sounds like he's caught somewhere halfway between skepticism and hope. "Are you really still you?"

It's Andy's voice, or at least the synth voice of the human suit Andy wears, which confirms at least one of Patrick's theories. Patrick ducks behind a huge oak tree to catch his breath, then glances around to make sure there aren't any Masters about who might overhear him. "Yeah, I'm me. Long story, I'll explain later. Look, are you in your ship? I'm nearly there and it's probably the safest place to be right now."

"Yeah, yeah—you know where it's at, right? In Pete's—"

"I know. Don't say it, this line is probably compromised," Patrick cuts in. If all humans are now the Master, that means the Master has access to all the tech of the NSA, CIA, UNIT, and every other alphabet agency in the world. Not to mention the fact that the Master is (was?) one of the best and brightest of the Time Lords, a group known for its collection of overly-talented individuals.

Five minutes later, Patrick is hopping the fence and breaking into the Wentzes' garden shed. He can't believe Pete and Andy are still keeping Andy's ship here, but he supposes it's as good a place as any, and it's probably pretty hard to find a truck capable of moving a spatially-abbreviated spaceship. The Smith kid _might_ be able to do— Oh shit, the Smith kid. Patrick really hopes Ryan was bright enough to head for the hills and far, far away from his Master-ized (Masterful?) bandmates as soon as this whole fiasco went down.

A quick rendition of shave-and-a-haircut on the side of the ship has the hatch popping open and invisible arms hauling Patrick in. As Patrick busies himself with closing the hatch behind himself, a pen lifts itself up and scrawls on a nearby piece of paper, _Safer without suit for now. Clones don't seem to know what the people they replace know. Ex-Pete didn't know about me or the ship. Why are you okay?_ The blue of curiosity shimmers across Andy's skin, rendering him visible once more. Of course Andy would abandon the human suit when threatened; his is a species that camouflages by nature.

"I think that whatever changed everyone only affected human DNA," Patrick says carefully, not meeting Andy's huge, piercing-black eyes. "That's why animals are fine. And other non-humans."

_Makes sense—I'm ok, Pete & family aren't. Still doesn't explain you,_ Andy writes, his blue fading from a pale robin's egg to something darker, closer to cobalt. It's either a testament to Patrick's acting skills or to the faith Andy has in him that Andy is being so slow on the uptake here. Maybe a bit of both.

"I... may not be human. Strictly speaking." He's only spent a fraction of his life on Earth, but Patrick's always found more commonality with humans than he ever did with his own species. He likes to think of himself as an honorary member of the human race. "That said, you may as well speak—I can hear a pretty wide range of frequencies."

Pleased sunbursts of yellow-orange break across Andy's face, and he gratefully shoves pen and paper aside. "So, what. You're half-human or something? Your mom diddled around with a Trakenite?"

"What? No! I'm not human at all," Patrick admits. "If we make it through this, you can't ever tell my family, but I'm... adopted. In a sense."

"In a sense." Andy's long tongue darts out of his mouth, and he cocks his head to the side. Patrick thinks it might mean the same thing as a raised eyebrow, but he isn't sure.

Grimacing slightly, Patrick hedges. "It's not relevant to the current situation except for how it means I'm not human, so I'm not any more affected by whatever the Master did than you are."

"Wait, what master?" Robin's-egg blue starts to creep back across Andy's face, and he leans forward slightly.

"The guy everyone's turned into," Patrick explains. "That's what he calls himself. I mean, if he is who I think he is."

"I thought it was what's-his-face—that guy who got his alien buddies to kill Winters last year? Either way, he didn't really explain his deal when he was talking to himself on the TV earlier," Andy says.

"You remember the Time War?" Patrick asks, glancing to the side and not meeting Andy's gaze. "That killed all the Daleks and the Time Lords?" Most species capable of interstellar travel were at least peripherally aware of the Time War while it was happening, in Patrick's experience. He hopes that holds true with Andy; it'll make this all a lot easier.

With a snort, Andy flicks his fingers in agreement. "Yeah, except for how it clearly didn't, since Daleks kidnapped Earth last year. UNIT never did explain how all the planets got back to the right places after that."

Andy's mention of Earth's temporary relocation nudges something in Patrick's mind—a memory, maybe, or a memory of a memory. A recollection of a nonexistent happening; déjà vu of anamnesis, perhaps. But the thought is vague and fleeting, disappearing before Patrick can properly probe it for understanding. "Yes, exactly," Patrick says, slightly distracted. "The Master was—is, I suppose—a Time Lord. I'd heard he died, or run out of regenerations, at least, but maybe the High Council offered him a deal. He would have been a formidable weapon against the Daleks in the War, I expect."

"Time Lords, seriously?" Andy's head tilts again, but this time his tongue wraps all the way around his snout, indicating surprise. "I've never met one, have you? They're practically legendary."

Shoulders inching up towards his ears, Patrick admits, "I've... known one or two in my time." He remembers a chubby, laughing face, a small hand grasping his fingers, and swallows past the tightness in his throat. "They're people just like anyone else."

"Still, if this _is_ the Master and he's a Time Lord, we're pretty much screwed." Reflecting his worry, a pattern of sickly green swirls across Andy's skin. "Only the Daleks ever really gave them a run for their money. We haven't got a chance."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Rumor was that the Master had gone insane as well as rogue in the end. That he's done something as far out as to copy himself over an entire species tells me those rumors are probably true. And. There's another thing, too," Patrick says, hesitant now. As much as he fears the madness of the Master, there are still other forces Patrick fears even more. Forces Patrick really doesn't want to draw the attention of.

"Oh? What's that?"

"In most of the stories about the Master that I heard, there was usually another Time Lord who, er. Foiled his plans, I guess." Patrick knows how ridiculous it sounds, like something out of a comic book. There are certain words that tend to crop when one is speaking about heroes, he can't help it. "If the Master's still around, it could mean that the Doctor is, too. My—I mean, someone I once knew told me that the Doctor had a sort of special affinity for Earth, so there's a good chance that if he _is_ still alive, the Doctor will show up and fix this." It hurts to remember some of this. Dredges up memories Patrick had long-thought buried and forgotten.

Flushing an eager spring-green, Andy starts forward. "So let's call this Doctor, then. Get him to deal with it."

"Three problems with that—one, I don't know if the Doctor is even still alive. All the Time Lords are _supposed_ to be dead, remember. Two, if he is alive, there's very little chance that any of the equipment we have here is capable of contacting him. I mean, UNIT used to work with him and probably has some way of doing it, but UNIT is also currently the Master, so that's no good. Finally, I'd really rather not do anything to attract the Doctor's attention. I, uh. Kind of stole a human's identity when I became Patrick. It's the sort of thing that someone like the Doctor really wouldn't approve of."

"Wait, what do you mean, you _became_ Patrick? You said you were adopted."

"It's complicated. This really isn't the time to get into that," Patrick insists, waving his hand.

"If you say so. Damned well better explain when we're free and clear, though." Confused pale violet sprouts tiny curls of doubtful indigo, and Andy wrinkles his snout. Snorting, Andy flicks the thought away with the snap of his tail. "So. You know a fair amount about the Time War."

"It's an interesting topic," Patrick insists, hunching in on himself.

"Most people have a hard time even thinking about it, because of the paradoxes," Andy observes. "How the War lasted for centuries and is still happening but also never happened at all."

Patrick snorts. "It's not still happening. I would know if it was, and it's not." Probably.

"See, like that." Andy flicks the tip of his tail in Patrick's direction. "How would you know."

Glancing aside, Patrick adjusts his hat, fiddling with the rim in order to give his hands something to do. "I'm... sensitive. In a temporal sense. My whole species was." He frowns, considering. "Or, well. Is, I guess? Can't really count as nearly-extinct anymore if there's now an entire planet-full of us, even if most are psychotic clones."

Andy's skin turns a flat, ashen grey. "You're a Time Lord."

"I'm a Gallifreyan. All Time Lords and Ladies are—were—Gallifreyans, not all Gallifreyans were Time Lords," Patrick says, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice as he explains. It's a distinction he's had to make numerous times over the centuries, across the universe. "'Time Lord' is a title, not a species. It's just that mostly only the Time Lords and Ladies ever left Gallifrey, so they're the ones everyone's familiar with."

"As _legends_ ," Andy points out. "Because they all died several millennia ago, if they ever actually existed in the first place."

Patrick shrugs. "Time is a lot more fluid than people think. Gallifrey was destroyed ages ago; it was written out of reality; it still exists. All three statements are true." Patrick has never had a firm grasp of temporal theory, which makes it that much harder to explain it to people. (Again, Patrick experiences a sensation of déjà vu. Had he the time, he would explore that more, because with his species déjà vu is rarely 'just' déjà vu, but for now there are more pressing matters.) "The past affects the future, but the future also affects the past, since the very nature of time dictates that past, present, and future all happen simultaneously."

"Uh huh," Andy says distractedly, his attention apparently focused on one of the monitors behind Patrick. As Patrick watches, all color drains from Andy's body, leaving him a pale, unnatural white. "That whole thing about Gallifrey still existing," he says slowly. "Did you mean that in the literal sense?"

"Well, yes, technically. But I guess it would be more in the theoretical sense according to the way that you and most other life forms perceive time." Patrick glances backwards, trying to see what has Andy so spooked. "Why?"

"Because if I'm remembering my stellagraphy correctly, it's right outside," Andy says, and Patrick jerks forward, twisting around the rest of the way to stare. Sure enough, on the monitor showing a feed of the Wentzes' backyard, the sky is filled with the orange and curving shape of the home Patrick never thought he'd see again.


	7. Chapter 7

Even after what has to be one of the weirdest (if laidback and generally lazy, excepting the planet that threatened to collided with Earth for a hot second before disappearing) holidays ever is over, Taco continues to talk to Frank—so, probably not a Christmas miracle, then. It seems that now that Frank's finally accepted the fact that he got up to some pretty crazy shit back when he was kid, he can't ignore it anymore. 

Frank would feel like some messed-up Dr. Dolittle between Taco and Bunny and Dixie all clambering to tell him stuff now that they know he can understand exactly what they're saying, except that it's not just animals anymore. Last week Frank was innocently walking down the street when a sweet-looking Camaro called out to him, wanting to know if Frank might let its owner know it was in desperate need of an oil change.

It's getting downright ridiculous.

Four months after Taco starts talking, Frank drives out to Hempstead. Tracking down Carl turned out to be pretty easy once Frank bothered looking—Carl's parents still live in the same apartment and they'd been more than happy to help little Frankie Iero get in touch with their son. Frank is thinking it was a bit _too_ easy (he blames Bob for his pessimistic streak), so he's dropping in blind. It's probably unnecessary, but Frank can't help but get the vague feeling that Carl would be conveniently out when he showed up if he took the time to call ahead, and Frank's not going to put up with that shit anymore. He's an adult now, he deserves real answers instead of vague, worried glances when Carl thinks he's not looking.

The man who answers the door of the house is not Carl. "Yes?" he says, voice rising up at the end of the word to make it a question. "Can I help you?"

"Ah." All of Frank's planned speeches have been angry, accusatory things that really depend on Carl being the one to answer the door. "I'm looking for Carl Romeo?"

The man frowns, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. "What for?"

Frank should give the same answer he gave Mr. and Mrs. Romeo, that he wants to catch up with an old friend, but something stops him. Something that feels a lot like the part of him that lights up whenever Frank wants to talk to Taco. An old memory stirs somewhere in the back of Frank's head and, taking a deep breath, Frank raises a hand and says, "My name is Frank. I'm on an errand, and I greet you."

The guy in the doorway sucks in a deep breath and straightens, all the while giving Frank a really hard look. "Hi, Frank. I'm Tom, I live here with Carl. He's still at work, but he'll be home soon. I think it'd be a good idea if you came in and waited." Which, hey. Fair enough. It's quarter-past six right now; if Carl works in the city, he could be on his way. Frank's been dealing with this since Christmas, he can stand to wait a little longer.

Tom directs Frank to an average-looking living room and takes a seat on the couch opposite the armchair Frank claims. While they wait, Frank explains about Carl being his old babysitter. He doesn't mention magic or talking dogs. Doesn't mention visiting the moon or teleportation or strange writing traced in sun-bleached sand. Frank carefully avoids all that, but Tom continues to give him that hard look, though it's definitely starting to edge more towards curiosity than suspicion by the time the front door bangs open and someone calls out, "I swear the Powers That Be are having a joke on my behalf, throwing gridlock traffic at me as a sort of universal irony." Tom half-rises from the couch as Frank twists around in his seat and Carl steps into the room.

It's been nearly twenty years, but Carl doesn't look all that different. He's not as gangly, has an air of being all adult and grown-up in his button-down shirt and tie, but Frank can still see a faint shadow of the skinny, sunburned kid he remembers. Without even realizing it, Frank relaxes, the tension he's been holding onto since Christmas finally bleeding out of him. It's been nearly twenty years, but Carl still means _safety_ to Frank. Safety and everything working out alright in the end.

Carl blinks, focuses on Frank, and tilts his head to the side. "Hey, Frankie. You doin' okay?"

"I dunno," Frank drawls. "On the one hand, I'm a rock star. On the other hand, I can't go down the street without having random dogs and cars and trees and shit asking me for help. What the fuck, Romeo—you said this was going to _stop_."

"That shouldn't be happening," Carl says slowly, taking a seat on the sofa next to Tom.

"He showed up twenty minutes ago saying he was on an errand and greeted me," Tom says softly. This time, it's Carl who's subjected to the weird, intense look. "Carl. What did you _do_?"

"I fixed it," Carl insists, holding up his hands as if to fend Tom off. "Before I left for college, I fixed it so it wouldn't matter until someone told him. Or his life was in danger because of—" Carl breaks off, snapping his fingers. "Christmas. That whole crazy clone thing at Christmas. The Manual said aliens weren't affected."

"Wait, what clone thing? Taco—my dog—he just said all the other people smelled wrong, so we spent Christmas Day inside. What's this about aliens?" It's reassuring to know that Carl is just as mixed up in this crazy shit as Frank remembers, but Carl was always about magic, there were never any aliens.

Tom cocks his head to the side and looks at Frank "I _think_ Carl's saying you're not human, but I can't see it."

"I thought you did magic," Frank says accusingly, glaring at Carl. "Not aliens."

"Wizardry," Carl corrects. "Magic is a different kind of wizard entirely. And some aliens do wizardry, too. Sometimes we work with them."

"Yeah, whatever. But talking animals and shit—that's your magic Speech thing, not aliens. I remember that," Frank points out. It was a long time ago, sure, but advice given by a whale is the sort of thing that sticks in a person's mind.

Carl makes a frustrated noise and drags his fingers through his hair. "Frankie, do you remember when we went to the Crossings?"

"You took the kid you were babysitting to the _Crossings_?" Tom demands, face aghast. "What were you _thinking_?!"

"That he was seven years old and he'd find it really cool. Which he did, right, Frankie?"

"That was the place with all the strange-looking people, right?" Frank frowns, old memories stirring in the depths of his mind. "They got all pissed and kicked me out for no good reason."

"They kicked you out because of an abnormality in your name," Carl explains patiently, "which the guards saw written out in the transport spell that brought us there."

"What? I've never heard of anything like _that_ happening," Tom says, eyes wide. "It shouldn't have even mattered."

"They didn't want Frankie there because his dad was some big-shot political prisoner and the Stationmaster didn't want to get mixed up in Trionian politics," Carl says.

"Wait, seriously? _That_ guy?" Tom lets out a low whistle.

"You didn't think his mom just randomly grabbed the neighbor kid to look after him, did you? Frankie here was an assignment. The Powers were doing a favor for his dad," Carl says. "Plus, Frankie was a pretty cool little dude and someone had to help him deal with his natural affinity for the Speech."

A lot of what they're saying goes over Frank's head, but he's pretty sure he's grasped the core idea. "You're saying my dad was an alien."

"A sort-of important one," Carl says agreeably. "He actively wrestled with the Lone Power without ever even taking the Oath. The Powers didn't think it would be fair for you to have to deal with the possible fallout of that when you were too young to even attempt to understand it."

"Wait, is _that_ why you said I couldn't be a wizard, back in the day?" While Frank agrees that his current life doesn't really leave him with enough free time to fight the forces of darkness, he's still a bit bummed out that he was never offered the option when he was younger.

"Pretty much, yeah," Carl admits. "Otherwise the Powers probably would've tried to snap you up in a heartbeat. You're naturally inclined to wizardry; that's likely why everything's talking to you now that the memory-lock's broken."

"Considering all the crazy stuff that's been happening the past few years, I'm surprised you didn't show up here sooner," Tom observes, his nose stuck in a ridiculously huge book that he pulled from... somewhere. Frank's not sure, it sort of just appeared.

"I've got someone keeping a peripheral eye on him," Carl says.

Frank narrows his eyes. "Is that why Saporta acted all creepy that time the sun went out?" It was a bit weird when that particular memory resurfaced, but Frank's fairly certain he hallucinated Saporta having a third eye. Probably.

Tom whips around to stare at Carl. "You have _Gabriel Saporta_ doing babysitting duty for you? _Carl_ , that's not how you treat the only actively practicing wizard for an entire species!"

"He was handy at the time—they move in the same circles anyway," Carl says defensively. He gives Frank a slightly chagrined look. "Sorry you got subjected to the Silurian mindwipe, Frankie. I hear it leaves a nasty headache, but it's also more effective than a memory spell. That special extra eye and all."

"He's not going to keep doing that, right? Mindwiping me?"

"I'll let him know it's no longer an issue. Tom's right—with the way things are going these days, you're better protected knowing what's what if there's another incident like Christmas," Carl says. Still, Frank feels like it's in his best interest to try and steer clear of Saporta in the future—that red eye was just plain freaky.

"More like _when_ there's another incident," Tom mutters. " _Time Lords_."

Carl rolls his eyes but otherwise chooses to ignore his friend. "As for stuff talking to you, there's not really anything I can do about that. Like I said, you have a natural affinity for the Speech, so there's a good chance you'll understand a lot of the gossip that passes over most humans' heads."

"As long as you don't reply, they may not realize you can even understand them," Tom offers. "Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to casually talk to animals or inanimate objects in other languages anymore. You seem to switch to using the Speech automatically when you hear it spoken."

"Really." Frank can't help it, he's more than a little skeptical of that claim. Carl hasn't seen him in years and Frank only just met Tom; these guys don't know him.

"Frankie," Carl says gently, sympathetically, "we haven't been speaking English since I sat down."

* * *

Patrick's half-watching an interview with The Storybook Hour when he sees the way Ryan curls around himself, sees the slow, amazed smile that breaks across Ryan's face, and Patrick knows he has to act, has to do something. It only takes the smallest amount of effort on Patrick's part to convince Pete that it's Pete's idea to have Patrick check in on The Storybook Hour. It's important that Pete not suspect, important that no one guess. After the whole thing with the Master it's more important than ever that no one know. Sure, Andy found out as a result of that whole debacle, but Andy has his own secrets to keep; he doesn't want to unnecessarily draw the attention of the Master's nemesis any more than Patrick does.

Patrick keeps his advice vague when he visits The Storybook Hour. Vague and casual, tries to imply this kind of thing happens all the time. At first Patrick thinks his approach might be a tad _too_ vague, that perhaps his paranoia is unwarranted. These kids have been dealing with extraterrestrials on the downlow for years and rarely bandy it about despite Pete and Andy's regular encouragement to do otherwise. Then Brendon mentions the Doctor and Patrick's hearts seize up in his chest. He'd hoped the Doctor's reach wasn't so far-flung, hoped the Time Lord was limiting his meddling to the Britain as was his wont in the past. Apparently not.

Patrick tries to hide his panic with faux-ignorance. He should stop this now, leave, cut all ties he has to the Smiths and their band (ties to Pete, ties to Bob, ties to the life of Patrick Stump) before this turns around and bites him in the ass. That's what Patrick _should_ do.

But Patrick's been running and hiding for a long time. Running from the child he couldn't save, hiding from the consequences of his actions (his life). Patrick looks at Ryan Smith and he sees a scared, hopeful kid. Second chances don't come around nearly as often as they should, considering Patrick's lifespan. "Call me if you have any questions about this," Patrick tells Ryan before he leaves. "I can't promise I'll have all the answers, but if nothing else I can be a sympathetic ear." Patrick shakes Ryan's hand and even though Ryan's grip is completely different, Patrick feels the ghost of chubby little fingers grasping his before slipping free.

It's just advice, Patrick tells himself. He has nothing to worry about.

Only it's not just advice in the end, and really, Patrick should have expected this. The Doctor is well-known for being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Of course the man would fail to give the Smiths the most basic of information. Of course it's Patrick who is stuck coaching Ryan through parthenogenic labor.

Patrick's not just giving advice now, he's snapping orders and it's possible he's not as careful as he should be. Spencer is already suspicious of him, Patrick should really watch himself better, but it all hits too close to home and Patrick has to make sure that things go differently this time. He has to stop running and make it right. There will be time to worry about consequences later, when this is all over. (Soon, everything will be over.)

He's still telling himself that when he steps into the room Ryan's been staying in a couple of days later. "I know you keep insisting you feel fine," Patrick says, "but you're going to be low on potassium and iron for at least another month, to say nothing of—" Patrick breaks off when he notices the man standing next to Ryan's bed. It could be anyone, Patrick tells himself as he babbles something about coming back later, already backtracking. It could be anyone, but of course it isn't, because that's not the way Patrick's luck works. Ryan calls the man "Doctor" and it's too late, Patrick has nowhere to go and he's been running for 24 (40, 65, 100—) years, but it's all finally caught up with him.

"You and I need to have a talk, I think, Mr. Stump," the Doctor says, locking eyes with Patrick. It's clear from the tone of his voice that he recognizes Patrick for what he is even if he doesn't know all of the details. The Doctor was always the best of them, though—Patrick doesn't doubt that the man realizes there must be something wrong if Patrick is hiding, if he's gone out of his way to hide from everyone, Ryan Smith included.

Carefully setting down the tray he's carrying, Patrick sighs. "Yeah," he says. He knew it was a mistake, getting mixed up with the Smiths, but he couldn't help himself. He only has himself to blame, in the end. "I was kind of afraid of that."

The Doctor leads him back to a TARDIS. Patrick follows without a word, brushing off the concerned inquiries of Brendon and the Smiths. At least Pete isn't here right now—a small consolation, but Patrick clings to it. He pauses at the TARDIS's entrance, catching the doorway to steady himself before glancing backwards. Ryan was left behind with Brendon and the baby, still recovering, but the others have followed him this far. Patrick finds Spencer's gaze and holds it. "Smith. Don't let them tell Pete. If I'm not done before he's back, tell him—tell him I had to take care of something." Patrick knows he can trust Spencer to do this for him. Spencer may be a suspicious bastard, but he more than anyone else Patrick can think of understands the necessity of hiding the truth from the ones you love.

"You know he won't leave it alone," Spencer says.

Patrick knows. It's Pete—he can never leave anything alone; it's why Patrick has had to be so careful for so long. "Have him call Andy if he presses you." Andy knows some of the story. He'll cover for Patrick, if need be.

Spencer's nod is stiff. Patrick has no idea how much Spencer knows, how much he suspects, but he thinks Spencer understands that Patrick may not come back from this. With a swallow, Patrick pushes through the door, lets it swing closed behind him.

The last time Patrick was on a TARDIS was... decades or centuries ago, Patrick isn't sure exactly how long it's been, it's all mixed up in his head between different star cycles and time travel. He's never been as temporally-grounded as most of his species. One of his many shortcomings. Patrick focuses his attention on the Doctor.

"Patrick Stump," the Doctor says, leaning against the TARDIS's control console and looking Patrick up and down. "Is that even your name?"

"You know it's not," Patrick snaps, feeling peevish and annoyed. He yanks off his hat and tosses it aside, feeling a small thrill of triumph when the Doctor raises his eyebrows in surprise. Mighty as he is, the Doctor never noticed the hat's dampener until Patrick removed it. The man doesn't know everything, despite what legends claim. "But it's who I am. For now."

"You're not a Time Lord? No, you don't have the training..." The Doctor puts on a pair of glasses and steps forward, peering at Patrick.

It takes all of Patrick's willpower to not hug himself reflexively in response to the Doctor's scrutiny. "I failed the trials," Patrick says, and the words sound angry when he forces them past the lump in his throat. "My temporal sense is off, or something. Genetic typo caused when the Looms made me." Just another fuck-up for the Time Lords to sweep under the rug and ignore. Every time Patrick thinks he's made peace with it, something shoves it in his face again and he finds it still hurts just as much as it did the first time.

"The Looms? That's old," the Doctor says, leaning back and letting out a low whistle. "Not another child sent off to the edges of space, away from the fighting of the Time War."

"Not that old," Patrick says with a shrug. "A century or three at the most. I—I traveled forward with my—with a Time Lady some before I hitched a ride to Earth." His hearts clench and Patrick takes a deep breath. Lets it out again. Time to stop running.

The Doctor sobers, his face turning grim. "Two and half, give or a take a decade, by my estimation. Relatively young, still. Patrick. You know that you're dying?"

It's not what Patrick expects him to say. He's waiting for the outrage, expecting accusations of cowardice, theft, murder. Sympathy was never something he anticipated happening should this situation ever come to pass. "It's just this regeneration," Patrick says, perplexed. "I think I might've taken in some human DNA when I did it that made it go all screwy, so now I'm aging at a human rate. Should snap back to normal when it's time for my next regeneration. I'm only on number two." Or maybe it's so fucked up that he'll die for good when the time comes. Patrick's grasp of chronal biology isn't any better than his understanding of temporal physics. "This is convenient for now. I have a life here."

"A very human life. Any particular reason why you chose to hide yourself from the Smiths? You mean them no harm, but you maintain the illusion of humanity."

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut. Clenches his teeth, his fists. "Children," he says softly.

"Excuse me?"

"It comes down to children," Patrick explains. "I—took this identity, this face from a child who died too soon. Kept my—his—parents from knowing what they lost, prevented that grief. No parent should have to bury their child." Patrick isn't crying, but only because he spent all his tears decades ago, on a distant planet, in another galaxy, under different stars. Now he tries not to think of the grief, instead tries to focus only on a brilliant smile, a joyous laugh, another hand caught in his.

"The War took the best of us," the Doctor says quietly. "It took the best and left behind a ragged group of babes, misfits, and ne'er-do-wells."

"And you wonder why I prefer to be human," Patrick says. "At least humans don't know what they've lost."

"That's why you knew what to look for with Ryan," the Doctor says, leaning back and studying Patrick over the top of his glasses. "You know all about Gallifreyan parthenogenesis from personal experience."

"It really only kicks in under dire circumstances," Patrick says with a laugh that's more like a choking cough. "A complete absence of another member of the species." Or a feeling of total disconnect when it came to relating to one's fellows, as Patrick had discovered. "I hitched a ride on the wrong ship and spent a couple decades stuck on a desolate little moon. It got pretty lonely, waiting for another ship to pass by. We made do."

"A parthenogenetic near-copy; her temporal sense bred true," the Doctor says. He may not know everything, but he really is as keen as the stories say. Sensing the way of things without being told.

"It did," Patrick admits. "Left me in the dust once we got back to civilization; sped off and barely looked back. By the time I saw her again, she had a century on me and she didn't have much use for me. Oh, she tried—took me along with her a few times, but she kept expecting me to be more than I was, and it was hard on her, realizing just how little I could do, how much I would never understand."

"Gallifrey was never particularly kind to those who didn't fit the mold," the Doctor acknowledges. "It must have grated on those hidebound old idiots that an 'anomaly' like you managed parthenogenesis while they were stuck using the Looms," he offers.

"Not really. By the time we made it back to Gallifrey, someone had come through, fixed the sterility issue, and the Looms were long gone," Patrick says, raising an eyebrow at the Doctor. "We were considered rather passé when we showed up. Relics of some by-gone era. I expect you know how they could be about things they'd really rather just forget."

"You left her there?"

Patrick shrugs, running his hand through his hair. "We left each other, in the end. Like I said, I tried traveling with her at one point, but it didn't really work out. I went back to hitching my way around the universe on my own. I was on Earth when the Time War finished, near as I can tell. Not sure—I know it was happening across all times and concurrently never happened at all. But time is subjective, isn't it? More-so for some people than others." Temporal theory confuses the hell out of Patrick, but he still realizes that he understands it better than most humans due to his very nature. Still, Patrick's understanding of temporal theory is like that of a child's when compared to that of any Time Lord. The disparity can only be greater with _this_ Time Lord.

"You would be more sensitive than most to major fluctuations in the fabric of time," the Doctor agrees. "Certainly more so than Ryan, as he was physiologically human until just recently. I think." He frowns, staring distractedly off into space. "Mostly been trying to interact with the Smiths chronologically to avoid tripping up anything. Don't want to give the kid a temporal allergy by exposing him too often to asymptomatic tachyons before his fourth decade."

"Ryan's been fully Gallifreyan for less than three years," Patrick confirms. "The rest of him was... somewhere else?" He's still not sure how Ryan managed that. It certainly wasn't something Patrick was ever taught in school, and Ryan is at least a couple centuries younger than Patrick, if not more.

"Subspace pocket connected to a Chameleon Arch," the Doctor says with a wave of his hand. "Useful for passing as native when you need to. Though you seem to've done alright without." He raises his eyebrows at Patrick, the unspoken question clear between them.

"I like the life I have here. My family, the friends I've made—I feel at home here in ways I never have anywhere else. I'd rather that didn't change." Patrick tries to keep the anxiety from his voice, but it wouldn't surprise him if he's failed.

"Something tells me your friends at least won't hold your lack of humanity against you," the Doctor says, voice gentle and more than a little kind.

Maybe he's right—Pete's been gung-ho about embracing Andy's alien-ness for years, after all, and Joe is apparently pen pals or blood brothers or something with a Malmooth. But. Still. "I've finally found someplace I fit," Patrick says. "I want to hold onto that as long as possible."

* * *

After years of straws, tar cocoons, energy-sucking mummies (seriously, he's _still_ trying to figure out what happened with that last one), Bob finds himself more than a little relieved when the body he stumbles across has honest-to-god bloody puncture wounds on its neck. Practically normal, though Bob has the uncomfortable feeling that it could be another Saturnyn; Harkness tried to fill him in on the relevant information that Bob lost due to the Retcon, but getting it secondhand just isn't the same.

Still, that doesn't stop Bob from breaking out the emergency crucifix he took to carrying back when it became clear his stumbling onto vampiric aliens was going to be a trend. He wishes he had some garlic to chew on, but it's not like he can fix that and there's no point in bemoaning things he can't do anything about.

The body is still slightly warm despite the chill of early autumn, so the scene is likely relatively fresh. With that in mind, Bob, casts his mind outwards, searching for anything that doesn't feel right. There's something hinky a block or two over, so Bob heads in that direction until something better catches itself in his mental 'net.'

The something hinky is engaged in an argument with a bat when Bob tracks him down, which is suspicious enough that Bob doesn't think anything of grabbing the guy's shoulder and spinning him around, ready to lay him out with a single punch if need be.

"Bob? What the fuck are you doing here?" Frank asks, eyes saucer-wide.

Bob stares down at his friend, brain stuttering to a stop. Normally, Bob'd think shapeshifter, body-snatcher, hallucination—but that's Frank's mind alright, buzzing in that weird way it always has, tickley and just a little different from everyone else's. Slowly, Bob lowers his fist and lets go of Frank's shoulder, taking a step back. "Wanted a breath of fresh air after being cooped up inside all day," Bob says in answer to Frank's question. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Frank glances at the bat. It's no longer fluttering around his head, having instead settled down to hang upside-down from a nearby street sign, looking for all the world like it's waiting for Frank to finish with Bob. "Same as you?" Frank chances.

Bob crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow, not buying it for a minute. Sure, Bob has busted his ass trying to keep the rest of his band from twigging to his telepathy and alien-fighting, but there was definitely a hinky vibe coming from Frank just a minute ago. "Sounded like you were speaking in tongues to a bat."

"I wasn't speaking in tongues," Frank insists, again glancing back at the bat. "I was just. Look, it's nothing, okay? Can we just forget about all this?"

Much as Bob would love to do just that, there's some kind of vampiric killer on the streets and Bob _did_ just find Frank consorting with a bat. A bat that's acting very un-batlike, hanging out around humans. Ugh, Bob hates to do this, but it was going to happen sometime, probably. "Is the bat a shapeshifting alien with vampiric tendencies?"

"What? No, of course not! Noms is a little brown bat, she's a native species and strictly an insectivore," Frank says, forehead furrowed in confusion.

"Noms." Bob gives the bat a skeptical look. The bat flaps its (her?) wings and makes a bunch of squeaking noises that would be adorable if she weren't currently prime murder suspect #1.

"Well, I wasn't going to call her by her whole name. 'Very Fast Mighty Hunter of Small and Annoying but Ultimately Super-Delicious Buzzy-Bitey Noms' is a bit of a mouthful," Frank says. "Bats are great believers in descriptive names."

"It's a _bat_." Bob is used to people talking to their pets, but not random wildlife. And while Bob is used to a certain level of weird in his life—you learn to tolerate a lot, when you pick up other people's stray thoughts—honestly believing the random wildlife is talking _back_ is a little out there even for him.

"Bats are people too, Bob. They deserve just as much respect as the next person." The bat squeaks, then uncurls one wing in a sort of half-flap before settling down once more. Frank glares at it and says… something. Psychically, Bob gets the general gist of what Frank says— _"I'm getting there, have some patience"_ —but when it comes to his ears, it sounds like something completely foreign. (And, at same time, achingly familiar.)

"Getting to what?" Bob snaps, trying to shake the strange mix of joy and nostalgia that Frank's weird language is evoking in him.

"You know Speech?" Frank asks in that same odd language, though he doesn't says 'Speech' so much as he uses a word that means something akin to, 'language that encompasses all that is and was and will be.'

"Not exactly," Bob hedges. Wonders if it's worth continuing to try and hide his psychic abilities in the face of Frank apparently talking to a bat that may or may not be a vampire in disguise. "I can get the general idea of what you say. The bat just sounds like squeaks to me." He sighs. "I may be slightly psychic. Just a bit."

"Oh. Well." Frank rubs the back of his head, glances at the bat once more, then shrugs. "Apparently there's a vampire lose in the neighborhood and Noms is worried because humans freak out and take it out on bats whenever vamps go all murder-y. She came to me because with no human wizards in the area at the moment, I'm apparently the next best thing."

Vampires. Wizards. This night is just getting worse and worse. "How are you the next best thing to a wizard?" Bob asks, because he's apparently reached a weird saturation point and willing to believe anything.

"Funny you should mention you're slightly psychic," Frank says with a nervous laugh, "because I'm slightly alien. As in, half of my genes are literally not of this world."

Bob groans, because of-fucking-course Frank's an alien. " _Please_ tell me you're not a giant lizard." He still gets the creeps every time he visits Patrick and Hurley's only got the head of his human suit on. There are certain things Bob's monkey-brain was never meant to see.

"100% humanoid," Frank reassures him. "Pretty sure Saporta's a giant lizard, though."

* * *

Patrick and Andy are debating the merits of cowbells and Joe is busy Facebook-stalking Bob Bryar again, so when someone starts banging on the front door, it falls to Pete to do something about it, even though they're at Patrick's place.

A glance through the peephole shows an anxious-looking redhead wearing some of the biggest earrings Pete's ever seen. She's not familiar, but she doesn't look like a crazed fangirl and it's not like Pete knows all of Patrick's weird friends anyway, so he figures it's probably safe to open the door.

"Hey," Pete says, eyeing her outfit through the security door. Now that he can get a good look at it beyond just the earrings, Pete's starting to second-guess his earlier assessment that she's not some crazy. Sure, some of Patrick's more eccentric friends are pretty out there, but Pete hasn't seen such creative uses of printed fabrics since the last time Gabe went on a thrift-store shopping spree, and Gabe's a three-eyed lizard person. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so? I am looking for." She stops, glancing down at her palm and the pattern of circles and lines drawn there. "P'trik?"

"Patrick? This is his place."

"Yes, that. I'm... an old friend?" She doesn't look sure of that, though it's not clear to Pete what part of it she's questioning—'old' or 'friend' or what. Or maybe Pete's just too distracted by the sounds of an escalating argument emanating from the room behind him to properly analyze this woman's tone of voice and turn of phrase.

Weighing the possibility that she may be a very clever stalker against the fact that Joe is something of an alien-fighting mofo courtesy of his obsession with Bob, Pete makes an executive decision and opens the security door, stepping aside. "Come on in. You're just in time to help prevent an interstellar incident." Not that Pete thinks the disagreement will really reach that point, but you never know with drummers.

Pete leads her through the entryway and into the den where Andy and Patrick have given up all pretense of civilized discourse and are rolling around on the floor, discussing their respective points via the time-honored method of fisticuffs and/or Sudden Death Arm-Wrestling. So, nothing unexpected there.

Joe glances over from where he's recording the whole thing on his phone for posterity, because he is a connoisseur of the finer things in life. "Who's this?" he asks, looking the visitor up and down.

"Pete, you can't just let anyone in, Andy's only got his head on," Patrick complains, because he still doesn't get that it's not like it's a big secret that Andy's an alien. Patrick twists in the grip of Andy's tail, trying to free himself while babbling nonsense in a half-assed attempt to explain away the giant human-headed lizard. All of his excuses die when Andy abruptly releases his grip and Patrick at last catches sight of the woman. Blood drains from Patrick's face, turning him a sickly pale shade. "You can't be here."

"Hello," she says, bending to offer her hand to Patrick. "I'm—"

"No, you _can't be here_ ," Patrick repeats, scrambling back and away from the proffered hand. "I don't even _remember_ this happening—timeline integrity—how can you—how did you even _find_ me—" He stops. Takes a deep breath. Pulls himself to his feet and straightens his hat on his head. "You can't be here, now."

"Patrick, don't be unreasonable," Pete starts to cajole, because he may not know Patrick's history with this woman, but she hasn't done anything Pete's seen to warrant this kind of rudeness.

Beside Pete, the woman sharpens her gaze, focuses her entire body towards Patrick. "This is P'trik?" she asks Pete, still using the odd pronunciation from before.

"Patrick, yeah."

She takes another step forward and Patrick pulls back yet again. "Stop that, you _want_ to break the fourth dimension and attract the attention of every Reaper for miles around?" Patrick snaps.

"Oh! You think—" she says suddenly, expression brightening and losing its previous confusion. "P'trik, I'm not you."

"If you're a different shapeshifter, this is in very poor taste," Patrick says, voice strained. "No one should have that face anymore."

"But I'm rather attached to it," the woman says, a soft smile curling her lips. "After all, my mother gave it to me."

* * *

Patrick's hearts stutter and skip in his chest when the woman (shapeshifter, surely she must be a shapeshifter) proclaims her face to be one inherited from her mother.

The thing is, Patrick _knows_ that face, that smile, that softly-rounded nose, that too-pointed chin. He hasn't had that face in decades, hasn't seen it on another living being for even longer. Shouldn't ever see it again, because the only other person to have that face died nearly a century ago (days ago, next Sunday, never existed in the first place, _always_ ) in a galaxy far, far away when the planet of Patrick's birth (was removed, destroyed, never created, forever exploding) ceased to be. Patrick lifts his chin, meets her eyes and. Stares.

Impossibly deep eyes, older than he remembers, full of centuries of pain, joy, sorrow, excitement, _life _. Jumbled orange curls sporting threads of white that should never be there, have never been there in Patrick's memories. Worry lines and sharp cheekbones from too much time spent fighting and surviving instead of living.__

__"Patrick...?" Pete sounds nervous, confused, and no wonder. Patrick's been spouting off about Reapers and timeline integrity and as far as Pete knows, Patrick is your typical, average human being._ _

__"It's. She's." Patrick stares at those eyes, old and tired, but still hopeful. Still bearing that spark of curiosity that spurned him forward, made him try so hard when Patrick was younger and still wore that face. "Val?"_ _

__She beams impossibly wide, and with that smile her face sheds decades, letting Patrick see the faint shadows of the young woman from his memories there. "I go by the Professor nowadays, but yes. It's me."_ _

__Patrick can't hold himself back any longer and he surges towards her, pulling her into a tight embrace. He tries again to explain, gets as far as, "Val's my," and then he's choking on sobs, because Val has been so many things to him over the years—his hope, his courage, his legacy, his greatest regret. At one point in time, she was Patrick's whole world._ _

__"Your aunt? Bio-mom? Mrs. Robinson?" Pete suggests, confusion turning into a sour, troubled look as Patrick continues to fail to explain himself._ _

__" _No._ She's my _daughter_ ," Patrick finally manages, forcing himself to pull back and stare at her some more. "I thought you were _dead_. Gallifrey—the Time War—"_ _

__"The Doctor fixed it," she says, because of course he did. Of course. "He, they pulled Gallifrey into a, a sort of limbo, frozen in time. Things only just recently caught up enough for him to remember what he did and pull us all out again." Val smiles, the smile of a teacher, a scholar, not the soldier circumstance forced her to become for too long. "Everyone back home is still pretty upset about the Moment, but he took the time to hunt me down and tell me where to find you. Said it was time we both stopped running from uncomfortable truths."_ _

__"Wait, wait, what," Pete demands. "Galli-what now? What the fuck is going on?"_ _

__"It's simple," Andy says, flicking his fingers in annoyance. "Patrick's an alien."_ _

__"What—? How—?"_ _

__"It's a long story," Patrick says, pulling back from Val so he can see the rest of the room, though he grabs her hand, squeezes it tightly in his own. He's dreaded this for so long, but the Doctor's right. It's time to stop running. "But, to start with, Patrick Stump is dead."_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this off-and-on since, oh, let's say 2009. I'm sorry I left the end of AFA open for so long; I'd say it's just a case of this story growing way longer than it was ever supposed to be (true), but a lot of it was a combination the slow decline of the fandom, various things in my personal life, and the fact that I'm a horrible procrastinator.
> 
> Sorry again, hope this answers all any lingering questions about this AU. If it doesn't, feel free to ask me them over on [tumblr](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/). ~~Gonna probably post some headcanons for this 'verse that didn't make it into this story sometime in the next few days.~~ [Here thar be headcanons.](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/post/168839946592)


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